On Thursday, the day before we headed over the hill to the Fireworks ride, Jim Masterson and his massage students came and worked on 10 of our horses.  It was fun to see Jim.   He was our team massage therapist for our horses at the WEG.  In Jim's class was a man named JP who raises endrance horses in South Africa.  He was working on Envol.  After the class we got to talking and it was decided that he would come and watch the Fireworks 50 mile ride two days later.

Friday we ran errands, Jeremy put shoes on a horse and then we went for a 9 mile ride on Smitty and Dee.  Finally we loaded up and went to the ride.  Jeremy would ride Envol on his first endurance ride ever and do the 50 and I would ride Nixon.  Rebecca Silva (a girl who frequently helps us condition our horses) was riding her own horse Sid and Martin Vidal would be doing his first 50 on Hadeia and ride with us.

We got everything all set and vetted, prerode and headed to the meeting.  As we sat down JP found us.  Pretty cool.  After a very long explanation of the trail I decided to leave the meeting and pack the crew bag as the trail was different from in the past and there would be no crewing.  After all was ready we went into Santa Cruz for dinner.  Hillorie, Rebecca, Jeremy, JP and I.  It was fun, we went to a great pizza place.

Saturday morning we had a 6 am start.  All 4 horses started nicely.  When we got to the river Envol went after Sid who was the seasoned "uncle Sid" for the day.  (We had spent time at home earlier in the week going into deep water and Envol had tripped and submarined!)  Envol was a bit anxious at first and looked like he might blow it and jump into the boulders but then he got control of himself and did great.  Nixon was now anxious because the way you enter the water you have to go around a large rock outcropping and he could not see Envol any more, he could only hear a lot of splashing.  He went in and rounded the bend and was then fine.  Hadeia did well also.

After that we headed up the climb to the road crossing.  This is where the worlds greatest crew had timed everything perfectly!  Hillorie, JP and Pablo (A Chilean vet that was visiting Hillorie and Martin) had coffee in hand waiting for us, made to order and did the hand off to us as we rode by!  Can your crew beat that??

We walked along laughing about how wonderful our crew was and drinking our mochas, Chias and lattes.  Oh and Martin even had a muffin.  Too fun.

Miles later Martin pulled the muffin out and it had gone from a muffin to a pound cake.  It was funny watching him eat the crushed, crumbley thing as we trotted along.

When we got to lunch the horses were happy.  By this time we had gone the furthest Envol had ever been before by quite a bit.  He looked great.

The trail this year was even prettier.  There were many changes including a long stretch on private property.  Very pretty. 

When we came into the last vet check all the horses looked good.  That is until Sid trotted out, all of the sudden he was lame in the hind end.  Damn.  He looked like he cramped up.  After the hold we continued on without him.

On the way back we had an uneventful river crossing as we go back the same way we had come in the morning, no coffee though in the afternoon!  Maybe we can work on that;)

Envol, Nixon and Hadeia were all full of themselves coming back in on the common trail that we had done that morning.  Nixon even jumped up and kicked up his heels a couple of times!  Very fresh, happy horses.
In all it was a great ride.

See you all at Mendicino Magic.