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