Pictured above: Opening Act after his completion

On Sunday we decided to go to the GERA 50 in GA.  On Tuesday we booted up the three horses we were taking.  I was going to ride Act, Jeremy would ride Mo and Emma would ride her own horse Mana on his very first 50.  

We went for a ride on Thursday morning on different horses and then got cleaned up and loaded up the three to take to the race.  We left the house about 10:30.  Unfortunately that set us up for hitting traffic in Atlanta just right!!  The whole drive up it rained.  Looked like the beginnings of a promising race weekend:)

We pulled into camp around 6:30.  We were there as the ride meeting was in progress so we shut down the rig and listened before attempting to park our bohemouth.  The parking was sparse by then.  We did manage to get a great spot though.  After getting evrything all set up we decided that Ihop looked like a great idea, so we unhooked and went for it.  Peach pancakes!!!!  Need I say more??

After dinner we went to Walmart to grab human bug spray and a couple of other things.  Back to camp and lights out.  It was rather warm in the trailer that night.

Having a young rider is great.  Emma did the 3 am feeding:)  She gave out the mush that had Redmond salt in it as well as the hay.

On Friday morning the race started at 6:30.  I saddled up Act in his RP Saddle www.reactorpanel.com  The ride was really nice, mostly single track.  Act did better with rating at this ride than he did at Biltmore.  It was great practice for him as it was very trying mentally.  The front runners would be going faster than me and then slower than me so each time we caught them Act would have to continue at his pace as they then accelerated from us.  He did really well.

The ride was made up of two loops that were roughly 12.5 miles each.  One loop had two big rivers, one of which you were pretty buoyant while crossing.  Because of the rain, the trails got really poor after you did them one time each and were heading out for your second round.  There were sections of red clay on steep hills.  In those spots you could see some pretty impressive skid marks from hooves going in too hot.

As the day went on, I saw Jeremy and Emma in passing as we were doing the same loops and some were  lolipops.  

Act went out of the last loop with a couple minute lead and won by over 20 mins.  Part way in to this last loop I decided to not ride him the second day, as that was my original plan  It was suppossed to rain again that night and the trail was already so torn up and slick that I didn't see the point in risking Act on it.

Act also won Best Condition and High Vet Score.  He is really a neat horse.  Mo and Mana finished without a problem and Emma was very pleased with her horse, as she should be.  In all, it was a well run ride with pretty scenery.  

The next race for us is not a horse race, it is the Western States 100 mile trail run...on foot.  Jeremy will be attempting to kill himself;)  On June 28.