We loaded up 6 horses Friday morning, after bathing them all.  There were three trailers from our ranch heading up to Grant Ranch with 9 total horses.  6 of them were ours, the other three belonged to Scott, Rebecca and Joan.

Jeremy was looking forward to riding Stirgess on his first FEI 50 and the first time we were going to let Stirgess move out a bit.  I would ride Bey on the open 75, a rider from the UK named Sam would ride Roof on his first FEI 50, Dom Freeman would ride Razin on the open 50, our good friend Chris from South Dakota would ride Nixon on the open 50 and a rider from Sweden named Caroline would ride our new horse Turbo (this horse arrived from Colorado the previous Friday from Garrett Ford) on the open 50.

The three other horses were Scott on his horse Marvel on the open 75, Rebecca on her horse Sid on the LD helping Joan on her horse Kongo.

The drive up the road to that race is REALLY tight especially when you have a very long LQ trailer like ours.  My friend Maddy and I drove ahead in her orange KIA with or hazzards on, to flag down oncoming traffic and possibly save a bicyclist from a head on collision with our truck.  We made it up safely.

Maddy and her dad Jesse had come up to help out and crew.  When we arrived we set to work getting the horses taken care of.  It was simple with so many hands.  After checking in, Jeremy and I pre rode as did Dom and Sam, separately.

A bit later Jeremy saddled up Nixon for a pre ride with Caroline on Turbo and Hillorie on Sandy.  Right when they were mounting Chris arrived fresh from the airport and quickly hopped on instead of Jeremy.

Rebecca and Joan were also going for a pre ride.  During their pre ride something had gone wrong and Joan's back and foot hurt so she decided to call it safe and not ride.

Saturday morning my cute husband fed all of the horses in the wee hours.  I had the earliest start time of 5:30 so I tried to get ready quietly.  Bey was happy to see me and we saddled and left the warmth of camp.  I had dressed with the idea it would get warmer as we went.  That was faulty, the weather actually got colder until about noon, then was stable and fluctuated from chilly to really cold to cool to freezing etc.  super crazy for trying to stay comfortable.

Scott and I were using this ride as a Tevis training ride and had a plan that we were riding to.  Both horses were going really steady.  It was both horses first 75.

Maddy and her dad were awesome and meet us at the vet checks.  At the second vet check they had just made bacon and eggs that we enjoyed.

I really didn't see any of our other riders for the majority of the day as we kept missing each other.  When I reached the 60 mile mark I found out that Stirgess was looking terrific and that he had a really big lead.

It was at the 60 mile point that Marvel stayed longer at the hold to eat more.  Scott decided to let him eat for an extra half an hour as he wasn't eating like he should.  I went out of that vet gate and shortly after caught the leaders.  Bey felt great and was super happy.  I had 15 miles left.  As we got closer to the end it was just myself and Nicole Smith.  We decided that the horses were well matched and rather than run them in we would tie.  They were both slated to go to Tevis so who wants to risk it if you can be safe?  Nicole won the FEI 75 and we tied for the AERC ride.

When I finished the ride Stirgess was already their and had won by almost 2 hours.  He also won BC.  He is truely Smitty's little brother:)

After that Razin and Roof completed a long while later followed by Nixon and Turbo.  Everyone looked pretty good and all 6 finished. 

Sid also finished with Rebecca.  (Scott went back to get Marvel looked at after the extra eating and Marvel looked fine but then he had become a bit stiff from standing around.  Next time.)

We were going to stay Saturday night and drive home Sunday morning but the weather looked horrible so we packed up and drove the 45 min drive home.  I am so glad we did, on Sunday's ride the tail end riders got snowed on at the last vet check!

In all it was a successful weekend.  Our next ride will be Ft Howes in Montana on June 11-12.

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