Big South Fork 50

Well, our 5th 50 mile endurance race, and our 5th completion! Whoot hoot! Although thanks to my overkill on trying to make my pony comfortable it was just barely a finish :/. First off, I went ahead and padded his front feet as he keeps getting stone bruises on his fronts and I wanted to be sure he was nice and protected for the ride. Unfortunately, the equipak that the farrier used did not perform very admirably :(. Not only did both of his front feet get sand in the equipak at the toe, but then it also dried a LOT harder than normal. This caused a LOT of pressure on the poor Marco's front feet and made him incredibly uncomfortable. Then we were using the new treeless saddle which had been working quite nicely before the ride aside from sitting a bit too far back, so I just shortened his breastplate and figured that would take care of the issue. Welllll, apparently I cranked it down too short so the saddle actually bruised him on either side of his withers where it was being jammed into him with every step :(. Poor Marco, but he was a trooper and still completed even with all of my torture techniques that were apparently in place to make him miserable. Oh well, live and learn. Oh, and on the way to the ride my fan clutch went out on my truck, joy.

So the ride itself was beautiful, awesome, and FUN! I got to leave for the ride early and hang out with old friends and new from Wednesday all the way until Sunday! Whoot hoot! The weather was really nice and cool at night, but it certainly warmed up during the day. The day of the ride it got to above 90 degrees with really high humidity to boot... it was not an easy day for sure! Linda was nice enough to let us use her handy dandy hose with pressure so we could cool off the ponies with nice running cool water though, so I was hopeful that we would be ok with the heat. We also made sure we had plenty of time to finish the last lap as we knew how hot it was supposed to get, and that we would be doing the second half in the heat of the day. By that time, we met up with a new friend, Hillary Tuttle, and her beautiful arab/fresian cross. We chatted about how neither of our horses were on their A game that day (poor Marco, now I know why!) and walked the majority of the last loop. And let me tell you, that last loop was TOUGH! We also tailed up all the big inclines to be sure to pamper them as much as we could considering the circumstances. We came in with an hour to spare and vetted out pretty quickly. Angie and Jody kept yelling at me not to wait to vet him in so I went right after I rinsed him off. He originally was at a HR of 74, but I was letting him chow down on a whole bucket of beet pulp and graze... so I took his food away and waited a few minutes and he was down to 54. He was obviously not a happy camper, but came out all A's and B's in the end. He ate like a hog in slop all evening and into the next day, and although sore from my torturing him, he was quite perky within a couple of hours, and by the next day he was downright ready to go do something.

So the next day there was another 50 but we were not in it, we originally were considering it, but with all the issues we decided to take it easy. I was glad as the weather turned into my least favorite kind... cold and rainy :P. I just laid in my cot reading for most of the morning wishing I had gone ahead and packed up to go home. Around 2pm though it started to clear up, and then it was absolutely PERFECT weather, sunny, cool, and low humidity! Awesomeness! So we all came out of our caves and started socializing again ;). We took the horses for a walk and then just hung out all evening chatting. What a nice and relaxing day! I also got to meet Caitlin's new(er) friend Susan Reid on this trip as we all camped together, and we all got along swimmingly and had an awesome evening of gabbing, eating, drinking, and relaxing. Then Anna, her dad Bill, and Rebecca came for the ride and tie that was happening Sunday, so we just did a leisurely packing on Sunday and watched all the ride and tie folks come in. Thankfully Linda Toups, the ride photographer (and friend) was nice enough to show us her awesome shorter and much more scenic route both to and from the ride, so it was quite an enjoyable drive! And my fan clutch decided to behave the whole way home too, which made for a much less stressful trip ;).

All and all, another wonderful weekend with the endurance fam! They really are some awesome peeps, every one of them! Everyone is so happy, so upbeat, and you never hear anyone whining or complaining about much of anything. Awesome group of people, awesome sport, and a wonderful time was had by all (of our group anyway ;). Pictures to follow...