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WEG 2014

 Heathers Blog 
Sunday, February 10 2013
On Thursday we loaded up Erebus and Dust to go to the Boy Scout 50.  We also hauled up a cute mare for Pat Thomas that belonged to the ride manager, Kim Williams. 

When we were about an hour from the ride it looked like it was going to be raining soon.  As we exited highway 75 I saw a Starbucks and made a comment on hitting that up on our way home.

The rain started and it was pouring.  We pulled into the ride camp and got our rain gear on.  We then went to check in and after that the mare was unloaded and taken to Kim's camp.  We decided to leave Erebus and Dust on the trailer for a while to see if the rain might let up.

Jeremy and I went to hang out in the trailer to kill time and wait out the rain.  Right when we got into the trailer it was clear that the recent trailer repair to seal the roof did not work!  The ceiling was dripping from multiple places, including over our bed!  We quickly got out some buckets (unfortunately we are well versed in what to do when you are camping in a rainforest trailer!  This happened to us already this season, hence the trailer repair to seal the roof!!).

The rain was coming down heavy.  Jeremy had the idea that he should check to make sure the truck and trailer were parked in a straight line so if we had to get pulled out it would be easier to pull us.  (Our neighbors were getting pulled out of the mud right about then)  He decided to fix our parking job.  After he moved the rig into a straight line the roof above our bed stopped leaking as it changed the angle of the roof and now the leak was further back, hooray!!  But now Roo's bed was getting wet, so we moved him to the couch. We had about 8 buckets in various places and the whole thing was so ridiculous that we just had to laugh!

We offered the horses water in the trailer and eventually unloaded them when it was time to vet in.  We did not pre ride but we did walk and jog in hand a little. 

The dinner was at 6 and it was made in the Boy Scout camp kitchen.   It was yummy.  The ride meeting was at 7.  Lisanne and her rider Molly sat with us and we goofed around for awhile before heading off to bed.

In our conversation, Molly and I discovered that we share a past Halloween costume, we have both been a Spice Girl (that is weird enough, right??), and better yet we were both Scary Spice!!  That is the African American Spice Girl:) What are the odds??? Small world!!

Around 9 pm the rain stopped and we were able to put the buckets away, good thing because I might have been hospitalized trying to find my way through the bucket maze on my way to the bathroom in the night!!

The next morning it was foggy and damp but not raining.  There were about 1/2 the entries that had been at the ride the year before, there were over 60 riders for day 1.  Our only day.

Erebus and Dust were feeling good and we had decided to start late as it was their second 50 and we wanted to have a peaceful ride.  We started 6 mins late and walked out across the starting line. 

The ride has really fun winding single tracks for the first loop.  We would be doing the Blue loop, Pink Loop and then repeat in the afternoon.  Having 2 vet checks, a trot by after the blue loop with a 50 min hold after the pink loop.   Then the blue again, a 50 min hold and the final pink loop.

Both horses had a great day, they increased their speed a bit each loop.  The final loop they cantered easily around.  We actually ended up 9th and 10th!  Pretty cool considering we left late from each check and started late.  The guys did well and looked great.

After the ride we let the two guys hang out and after about 2 hours we loaded up.  On the way home we hauled Amy Whelan's horse back with us to go to the Olson's. 

I was excited to hit up Starbucks.  Our drive would only take 3:30 so it was going to be a simple drive and we would get home by 8.  We got out at Starbucks and Jeremy noticed a smell that was like burnt rubber.  He felt the rims on the trailer and one was really hot and could barely be touched.  Not good.  He was thinking a bearing was going bad.  Which we also just had fixed, as well as the trailer brakes and multiple other things.

I made a few phone calls and found a big rig repair 2 miles down highway 75.  They said they would check it out.  We took our coffee and headed over to that shop.  After they checked it out it was found that the brake was dragging and could have caught on fire! 
The trailer repair place that "fixed" our roof and brakes and other things will be hearing from us...

We got back on the road, our new ETA was 10 pm.  Oh well, at least we didn't brake down on the highway or worse yet catch on fire.

The rest of the drive was uneventful.  We dropped off the horse to the Olson's and then cruised home.

The next day Erebus and Dust were bathed to get all of the mud and grime off from the race and then proceeded to gallop around the pasture bucking, that's always cool when they do that.

Our next race will be FITS on Feb 28, March 1-2, we will be taking 8 horses all of which will be doing FEI races.  I hope we see you there.
Heather
Posted by: Heather AT 08:38 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email
Sunday, February 03 2013
Above Left: Heather and Elvis  Right: Jeremy and Chanses
We had a great ride weekend at Broxton Bridge.  Originally we were going to drive on Wed but there were tornado warnings, high winds and rain at the ride location that day so we decided to wait until Thursday.

Thursday morning we loaded up Chanses, Cleo, Nixon and Elvis around 5 am and started our drive to South Carolina.  About 6 hours later we pulled into the ride site.  The horses all settled in nicely and we set up camp and relaxed.  Our friends Nicki and Andy (from the UK) arrived at camp in the afternoon .  Nicki was to ride Cleo with Jeremy on Nixon on the FEI 2* on Friday.  They went out for a pre ride and had a good time.  After that, Jeremy and I went for a pre ride with myself on Elvis and he on Chanses.  The trails at Broxton have as perfect footing as you can come by.  It is a nice depth of sand that has a firm bottom.  Really, a course you could go barefoot on if there was one.  (We were fully booted with the Easyboot Glue Ons)

When all of our riding was done we vetted in the three horses that would do day 1.  Elvis and I were going to do his first 1*.

The camp at Broxton is great, there are full RV hook ups, showers and there was a food vendor and Teddy from Running Bear Tack had her full store there.  There was also a covered pavillion for the riders meetings.  This would be a great place to host a big deal race.

The ride meeting went quickly and then we were so tired we headed to bed.  At 8 pm we were in bed and I was reading my book when Jeremy said he heard horses running.  He went out to see what was going on.  He came back quickly and told me to get up, there were many horses loose.

Our friends parked next to us had all 7 of their horses loose and there were many more that had broken out of their electric corrals.  It was total mayhem.  Horse had gotten out and then run through other horse's pens.  Our friends were at dinner so we tried calling them during the mayhem.  Luckily 5 of the 7 came running back through and we were able to grab them. 

A few minutes later 4 more were caught, 2 of which completed our neighbors M.I.A horses.  We caught 13 horses at camp.  Then our neighbors pulled up and our friends face was very upset.  She explained to us that on there rush back from dinner after receiving the call about their loose horses that they had just seen a grey horse on the hwy that had been hit and was dead.

Very upsetting.  The same lady who had lost the grey was missing her second horse and it was believed that it had been hit as well.  We rushed to help her try to locate her second horse.  When we went out to the road in front of camp we saw two car accident scenes about 1/4 mile apart from each other, two spots where horses had been hit.  It was very unclear about the second accident site as there was no horse at the scene, it had run off.

The poor woman who had lost her horse was beside herself worried sick about her second horse.  I felt so badly for her, her horses had been turned loose by someone else's horse running into their electric pen!

We had no luck finding her horse that night.  Around 11:30 we got back into bed.  How devastating...

At 4 am I got up to feed and went back to bed, at 6 we got back up to start getting ready for the 7am, 75 mile start.  I helped saddle Cleo and saw Nicki and Jeremy off then Andy and I hung out until it was time to saddle Elvis for the 1* that started at 8 am (how civilized!).

(Just as the 75 was starting the final missing horse was being led to the vets to get looked at.  It was walking fine and looked ok, what a relief.  In further findings it was discovered that the grey horse that had been hit the night before had actually been hit twice.  The first time it was able to run away and then probably panicked and ran into the second car.)

This would be my first race on Elvis.  He shipped out from CA after Christmas so he hadn't been worked much in the sand so I was going to ride a little conservatively.  At the first vet check, without crew his recovery time from the arrival to the pulse was 6 seconds!  He is pretty awesome.

I had a great ride on Elvis, I rode most of the day with Ellen Olson and we had a great time.  On the last loop I was out several minutes ahead so I decided to keep a 14 mph pace on the 10 mile loop and bump it up a hair at the turn around point.  Elvis won with ease and felt great and effortless.  His CRI at BC was 48/36!  Even I was impressed:)

At the end of the day Cleo and Nicki finished 12th and Jeremy and Nixon were 13th on the 2*. 

Elvis won the 1* and got Best Condition and High Vet score.  A great start to our career together.

That night we had homemade gumbo that Lynn Kenelly made for all of the riders, it was great.  Then the meeting and sleep.

On Saturday morning I woke at 4 to feed Chanses and went back to sleep and slept in past Jeremy leaving, it was nice as it was easily lower than 28 degrees outside.  I woke with plenty of time to start crewing for him when he came in.  Chanses looked great.  Most of the day Darolyn and Jeremy rode together.  On the last loop Chanses opened up his lead and cantered easily across the finish.  He won by almost 2 hours.   He looked great and showed really well for BC.

That night we had another Lynn Kenelly meal, yummy.

Today, Sunday, we had the awards breakfast.  Chanses had won Best Condition and High Vet score on the 2*.  Pretty great.  What a great weekend.  We are very sorry for the loss of the horse on the road though...

Next weekend, really a few days from now!  On Friday we will be doing the 50 at the Boy Scout Pow Wow ride with Dust and Erebus hopefully getting their last slow 50 done so they can do their 1*at FITS.  We hope to see you there.
Heather
Posted by: Heather AT 04:19 pm   |  Permalink   |  Email

Reynolds Racing
Dunnellon, FL 34431
 Heather: 408-687-7082
Jeremy: 408-687-7083
Email: Info@ReynoldsRacing.us

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