That being the case, I opted to take Eclipse instead. Eclipse, clearly, is up to more than a 25, so I put it to Wendy to move on up to the 50. She was a little intimidated, but game. I took her and the horses up to Cuyamaca the weekend before and we rode 30 miles of the 50 as a tune up for Wendy and Eclipse.
The night before the ride, my husband was flying in from work, so I would have to go get him. Wendy and I didn't make it away from the ranch until 6:30. Hindsight being 20/20, I should've just driven to the airport, horses and all, before going to the ride. As it was, we barely arrived at camp, checked in, got the horses vetted in, and the truck unhitched by the time his plane was landing. I went and got him, but was over an hour late picking him up. And, we had missed dinner! So when Mike and I arrived back at camp, we had to pitch the tent and prepare some dinner. We didn't make it to bed until nearly 11:00.
The ride start was 6:00am. We all dragged out of bed at 4:30 to start getting ready. Very little was accomplished in terms of getting ready to ride the prior evening. Our water bottles needed filled and we needed to make sure everything we wanted was in our saddlebags. It was gonna be a hot one, so we had to be very sure we had enough to last between vet checks. Mike was crewing for us (and volunteered while he was at it) so we didn't need crew bags.
We got a late start. By the time we finally headed out of camp, Terry, the ride manager, had driven back over from the start, and the vet was walking back toward camp. I knew we'd better hustle, as this ride is challenging. I'd done my best to prepare Wendy, letting her know we'd have to trot every step we could, even if it was only five paces.
No amount of preparation will ever be quite enough, when it's just verbal. I chucked Wendy into this ride and trusted Hoss to get her through it.
We got out on the trail and I got us all trotting. Eclipse is significantly faster than Hoss, but he's not as well conditioned as Hoss. So I needed to keep Eclipse checked back to a 7-8 mile per hour trot, rather than his preferred 9-10 miles per hour. This does not make Eclipse happy, I'm afraid, and about 6 miles in, he made sure I knew it.
I'd already discovered Eclipse will spook when confronted with passing a downed tree or similar things some evil critter could "hide" behind. Don't get me wrong, his spooks are quite easy to deal with. I mean, even the time he went 20 feet to the side, it wasn't one of those leave the rider behind sort of things. He quite gallantly took me with him. And now that I've ridden him a while, I can read him and have a sense of when he's thinking about something a bit too hard.
We were coming around a corner with a large boulder in the side of the hill to our left. I had my eye and attention on the trail, and I really didn't think the boulder was one of those objects he was liable to spook about. He did, though. He did a pretty hard jump to the right, forcing me to engage my (pretty badly damaged) right hip in order to stay on. I dropped the right rein, a habit I've picked up riding as a result of my shoulder injury. Before I had the rotator cuff repaired, I didn't have sufficient strength in my left shoulder to hang on, so I just took to dropping the reins altogether when a horse trips. When I dropped the rein, Eclipse tried to run out to the right. I am, however, pretty damn fast. I got the rein back and checked him before he could launch a complete stride.
Wendy missed the whole thing. Hoss had fallen far enough back they were around the corner. All she got to see was me yelling at Eclipse for being a snot.
We made the highway crossing and kept up our pace. I wanted to be to Vet Check 1 by 8:30 if possible. Cut off time was 9:30, and I knew from past experience it gets harder to make cut offs as the day progresses at this ride. Our in time was much closer to 9:00. We got the horses pulsed down and vetted through, then got them eating. I gave Hoss his electrolyte laced bran mash, which he didn't finish. Eclipse won't eat bran mash, so I just let him eat whatever he wanted, then gave him a tube of electrolytes before we left the vet check.
Back out on trail, we picked up the pace once again. I knew we had limited opportunities to move out, so I was pretty brutal about keeping it up when we could. By this time Eclipse was starting to think I might be right about the pace I wanted to set and gave me a little less of a hard time about it.
Going around the lollipop loop, added last year in order to make up a few miles the ride was short otherwise, we weren't able to go very fast. It's a bit technical to allow for much speed, and thus we could not make up much time. Once we were back on the fire road, though, we picked it up. We had to walk the steeper downhill portions, but we trotted most of the downhill and finally go to the flatter fire road.
After turning onto the flat fire road, we came to a water stop. Eclipse drank sparingly, Hoss drank quite a bit, as per usual. Hoss also took the opportunity to pee.
Once done at the water, we got out rears in gear. There was a steep uphill climb I knew these two horses were not trotting up, so we had to keep up.
At the bottom of the hill, we slowed to a walk and allowed the horses to climb at a walking pace. It was a warm day, but not nearly so hot as the previous weekend. We made decent time on the climb, then picked up the trot again once we were back on flatter ground.
We didn't make as good time as I would have liked. Cut off for the second vet check was 12:30. We were in at 12:15. Both horses pulsed down and vetted through easily. We got them set up with lunch and got ourselves something to eat. The lunch crew was getting everything ready to pack up, so we just made it.
By this time Eclipse was beginning to feel the exercise. He spent most of the hour sleeping while Hoss pigged out on the hay and beet pulp we set out and finished the bran mash he hadn't eaten at the first hold.
A pair of drag riders came into the vet check, but they had missed the lunch crew and as a result got nothing or very little to eat. They were understandably miffed, and asked us to make sure the "cookie stop" crew knew they were coming and wouldn't leave before they had made it through. We promised to do so.
Once our hold was near over, we took the horses for one final drink before giving Eclipse his electrolytes and bitting up. Eclipse did not think highly of the paste electrolyte thing, and this second time he was downright offended when I shoved the tube in his mouth.
With three hours to make the next 13 miles, we had to really get our hustle on. Cut off for vet check three was 4:15. The next 13 miles were not very fast miles. I knew we were going to have to take risks I wouldn't take under non-competition conditions. With that in mind, we got our butts moving.
We had to climb up out of the third vet check. It is a wide fire road, and by this point Eclipse was over trotting uphill and Hoss has never been particularly fond of it. So I was working hard to keep them moving. When the road was less steep, I'd demand they trot. Eclipse would trot for a little then want to fall out. I told him the shorter he made the trot sessions, the shorter I would make the walk sessions.
Once we topped the hill and started down the far side, both horses were more willing to move out. We boogied on down the trail with as much speed as we could reasonably muster, slowing for steeper parts of the trail. It was a race against the clock to make it in to the third vet check.
We made it to the cookie stop (and five minute hold), and gave the horses a chance to drink while getting our drinks topped up. Eclipse stuck his nose in each of the buckets but did not drink. Hoss drank like he usually does.
By this point I was getting a little worried about Eclipse. He hadn't peed all day. Of course, he's done this before and been fine, and this time he was getting the electrolytes he needed, so I wasn't thinking he was in some sort of dire danger. I'd just rather see him feel comfortable to go ahead and relieve himself! I was sure by that time his bladder had to be full.
We made sure the cookie stop crew knew about the drag riders (the riders later thanked us for making sure they weren't forgotten), and got ourselves on down the trail.
Now we were on winding single track, Hoss's favorite thing. I got Eclipse moving out and let him go just a bit faster, knowing Hoss would be more enthusiastic given the nature of the terrain.
A few miles along this trail, we came to a water crossing. Eclipse stopped and plunged his nose in, drinking deeply. I realized his objection to the water at the cookie stop was it was hot from being in the tubs all day. Picky horse!
We hotted right along, going around and up and down as fast as we could. Just as we made the turn to the vet check, a man on foot popped out from behind a rock. Eclipse spooked a bit, not enough to really make me notice, but enough those watching from the vet check noticed it. We made it to the third vet check with minutes to spare.
Unfortunately, Eclipse did not pulse down on time. He was technically a few minutes over time. However, the vet staff knows me well, and decided to allow us to continue. The area was being cleaned, so we got Hoss's bran mash made and down him, and let both horses eat from the bucket full of collected hay. The vet, realizing we really didn't have anything to feed the horses and not much time left, released us from the hold early.
We had an hour and a half for eight miles. Hoss has done the eight mile loop at Hollenbeck Canyon in an hour and fifteen minutes. Last year, Hoss's time on this ride was eight hours. I knew we could do this. All Wendy had to do was stay on.
By this time I was getting pretty tired from holding Eclipse in check. Eclipse was beginning to realize we were headed back toward camp. So we were making Hoss work a bit hard, but he was game enough. When I looked back, Hoss was coming along, ears forward, looking every bit like he hadn't really done anything yet.
We came into camp with ten minutes to spare. Eclipse was not recovering, and even Hoss didn't come down very quickly, so I decided we'd take the horses back to the trailer and get them untacked before vetting them out. I suspected the reason Eclipse's pulse was hanging was he hadn't peed yet, and sure enough, once we were back at the trailer, he let go. Once he peed, his pulse came right down. We unsaddled and sponged them off, gave them bran mash, and took them back for final inspection. They both passed, of course, and we took them back to the trailer before heading over for dinner ourselves.
After dinner, Wendy was asked how she liked the ride. She responded it was "95% fun." When asked what wasn't fond, she allowed as trotting downhill kinda sucked. In all, I have to say that's a win. For a first-time rider to say it was "95% fun" immediately after a ride is pretty amazing.
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