Sunday, November 01 2009
We were going to do the Malibu Ride and take a horse for a client to try out but on Wednesday night we got word that it was canceled. Our client lives in S. Cal so the other option was Git R done. We made the decision to go and packed up Thursday and drove down on Friday. Michelle Roush was very accomadating to let us enter so last minute.
On Friday we pulled in around 2 pm. We set up camp, got our crew bag ready and checked in. Very uneventful. Our friends/clients, Karin, Ron and JJ Donley arrived around 4 pm. While they were getting set up Jeremy took Bey for a pre ride. He had been pinned on the trailer ride and had had a rough day and Jeremy wanted to make sure everything was alright for Saturdays ride. Bey was perfect and really ready. After we all vetted through we headed to the lovely town of Ridgecrest for a nice dinner. We ate at Tokyo House. Jeremy and I had some good sushi while the Donley's enjoyed steak and salmon. JJ & Karin got curious as to how eel tasted so they did get brave and tried one of our rolls. We headed back to the ride after dinner for the ride briefing. During the briefing we had the usual desert Tortoise lecture as well as the normal trail, vet, etc data. This time the tortoise lady brought two live tortoises. They were really tiny. The one that was a year old was only the size of the palm of your hand! I guess they can live 100's of years and that is how you get the big ones:) Karin and her son JJ were doing the 30 to try out My Mamselle, aka Mya. Jeremy and I were doing the 50 on Bey and Makazin (I rode Makazin). The ride started at 7 am. It was Halloween so I was in my costume. My friend Maddy lent me a Tinkerbell costume with wings and all. It was too cold to have the wings on the first loop (which was a bummer as I missed out on having my picture taken with the wings on, Rene did get one for me after the ride though) but I put them on for the rest of the ride after that. They even flapped when I cantered! Jeremy sported some tall striped orange socks and away we rode. There were many other riders in costume as well. There was a bumble bee, a princess warrior, a spider, a pink princess and many more. There was a guy at vet check one who said that someone had complemented him on his costume. He was shocked as he was not wearing a costume, just his normal attire!! Maybe some of us dress up more than others. Karin and JJ arrived into the first vet check just ahead of us. All of the horses looked great. All of the riders were having fun too. This is when the day started to really heat up. It turned out to be around 80 degrees! Very warm for fuzzy horses. It was at this point that someone asked me how many horses we had. I had answered that we had 12 in endurance training and Ron quickly told me that it was actually only 11. (They really liked Mya!) The day flew by and Jeremy and I had fun riding together. Bey and Makazin have a very similar pace at the canter so they were well matched. The trail was deep with sand in some places and single track in others. The hissing, burrowing Owls were not out so it was a little less spooky than usual. Not a tortoise in sight. By the end of day one Karin and JJ were first and second on the 30 and Jeremy and I tied on the 50. (They didn't allow the tie so my cute husband gave me the win.) We hung out after the ride and went into town and got a Starbucks and checked movie times. Nothing was showing at the right time, darn. We headed back to the ride for dinner and the awards. Makazin won the high vet score and Best Condition. I was extremely happy with that. The awards for First and BC were cool hand crafted, iron work, powder coated cut outs of a horse with the ride name on it. It was art work for sure, very nice. The ride meeting followed the awards and we were all reminded to change our clocks back that night. This was a little concerning as our alarm clock is one that sets itself, and our cell phones set themselves as well. I did manually set my watch alarm, which I have never used before and we hoped for the best. Luckily all of the "self setting" devices did their jobs and it was not an issue. Day 2 Jeremy Rode Smitty and I opted to crew. I did the early AM feeding and then slept in. Karin, Ron and JJ packed up and headed out with their new horse Mya. Best of luck to their future success. Smitty breezed into the first vet check and was on his own all day long. Leaving the last vet check I drove out along the road that was parallel to the trail. I had some fun with our video camera and got some footage of Smitty and Jeremy. Good times. It was about 85 degrees today. Really hot. Smitty won by a large margin. He also won Best Condition. We relaxed and got packed up. After a few hours we loaded up and are currently on the road home. It was a great weekend. Next weekend I am off to Lake Orroville and Jeremy is off to Pennsylvania for a hoof care clinic. See you all soon. Heather | |||||||
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