On Tuesday morning we took Fuego and Smitty for a walk.  Jeremy and I rode our bikes and we ponied the horses for about an hour.  In the afternoon the rest of our team horses arrived.  Reason and Sando flew to Indianapolis and then drove three hours to Lexington. 

The only mishap so far with the horses for the entire trip was when Sando got nervous while the pallet was being trailered to the plane.  It was moving in a really jerky way and it set him off and he scrambled a bit and fell down in the pallet.  You can only imagine how worrisome that was tp then have to wait for the whole flight and trailer ride to find out how he actually was doing.  It turns out he is fine, a little cut up but totally fine.

After all were settled, horses and riders, we went out for a team dinner.  It turns out that Lexington's roads are like a big wheel with spokes.  The "wheel" is 45 miles around and the spokes connect everything.  This makes it a bit confusing at times.  After driving around to find a steak house that Charisse and Kim had been to earlier on their trip we did find "it".  Apparently there is a chain of these restaurants and this one was not the same one as the one they had been to before.  This had made finding the place more difficult as well.

On Wednesday I got to sleep in!!!  Yay!!  Jeremy and I went for a ride around the Polo horses pasture.  They are so funny because they run in patterns when they play and then they flat out race after they are done with the circles and zig-zags.

After doing the odds and ends that can consume your day Skip made an awesome spaghetti dinner with cheesy bread and an amazing salad.  We all sat around a relaxed and there was gin and tonic going around.  Then we watched So You Think You Can Dance and had several good laughs at the expense of the contestants while the chocolate chip cookies where baking.

We ended our day with hot cookies covered in vanilla ice cream, hot fudge and Reeses sprinkles.

Heather

We made it!!  We pulled in at 1:30 am and boy were we glad to be done driving... at least for the next 10 days:)  After well deserved sleep we took the horses out for a long walk. Jeremy and I rode our bikes and ponied Fuego and Smitty around Bryan Station.  The place is beautiful.  We are staying in a house on the farm.  It is really close to the barn.  We also have huge grassy turn out paddocks.  Both of our horses seemed relieved this morning to not be getting into the trailer. 

Charisse and Kim were already here and Cheryl and Carolyn fly in tonight.  Their horses fly in tonight as well.

Merlin thinks it is great here.  He has been sprinting around a lot today.  Yes, he literally sprints. 

I found out one more piece of info about Carson.  My friend emailed me a picture she had of him and he is a grey.  I like greys so that is good:)

Heather

We have been driving for 40 hours and our GPS says we have 530 miles left to go.   Last night there was a nice snow storm that we went through in Wyoming.   Right now we are in Missouri, at the moment that is synonymous for misery.  We are finding out that our new Toter Home International goes a fine speed in CA as the speed limit is 55 for a truck hauling.  Not the case in these central states where the speed limit is 75.  Our truck hits top speed at 61 MPH unless you are going down a big hill.  Oh well, it's a lot like riding a real honest hard working, sound endurance horse that is lacking any true talent.  You love them because they give you all they've got willingly, and you live with the fact that they aren't cut out for speed.

We are headed to Lexington Kentucky for the World Championship Pre-Ride.  We left Almaden, CA on Sat the 3rd around 1pm, after visiting psycho donuts, where you can get the most outrageous donuts imaginable.   We loaded up Smitty and Fuego and started East.

Jeremy will be riding Sir Smith and I will be riding Carson's Gold on the FEI3* 100/160 km race.  Fuego will be doing the FEI2* 75/120 km race with our friend Chikako who is representing Japan.  (Chikako rode one of our other horses, Genuine Treasure at the FEI2* at the Git Er Done ride earlier this year winning the Best Condition award for the FEI division.)

With the new FEI requirements it can be very difficult to have a horse with the right qualifications to be able to enter the horse at different levels of FEI rides . So was the case with me riding any of our horses.  I was going to ride Ssamiam, who is qualified but he got his leg hung in a hay bag and needed a little R&R.  (Sam and Smitty are the only two horses in our group that have done more than one season, other than Gem who is currently pregnant.)   I then thought that maybe I just wouldn't ride.  I slept on that and woke up and called Vallerie Kanavy to see if she might have a horse or a lead on a horse.  She came up with two horses in her group that she offered to me!  Extremely generous.  I was given Carson's Gold and a back up named Pandor.  Kim Orr owns  both of these horses and I am extremely appreciative of this opportunity. 

As the ride was getting nearer I was to ride Pandor as he has a little more experience and things were working out in that direction.  Then a few days ago one of Val's riders horses was sold so they needed Pandor.  I am riding Carson's Gold and am very exited about it.  I do not know anything about him other than that he is a male Arabian, I am pretty sure he is a gelding.  I will know a lot more about him after I spend a 100 miles with him. 

We will be arriving at the Pacific South Team house hopefully in the most odd hour of the night so as to wake up as many team mates as possible.  That's what team building is all about:)  Either we will arrive late tonight or early on the 6th.

The place is called Bryan Station and it has two houses and stalls with paddocks as well as several pastures and a track to ride on.  I think it is about 11-15 miles from the Kentucky Horse Park, which is where the race will take place.

Our Chef or Team captain is Skip Lightfoot and our team Veterinarian is Chuck Kessinger.  The team mates for Pac South are: Charisse Glen, Kim Fuess, Carolyn Hock, Cheryl Dell, Jeremy and myself.  All in all it should be great!

Our crew will be fun too.  Jeremy will have Deborah Reich and Lynn & Mark Ashby (our good friends from the race track, who we got Merchant, Makazin, River, Smitty, Fuego and Merlin from).  I will have Bethany Dearing Guth (a good friend who used to train in CA with us until she moved to Kentucky, still a good friend just to be clear) and Emilio Colman.  Our friend Maddy Feliciano will be Chikako's main crew and all the others will fill in as needed.

Chikako's saddle weighs a ton so Maddy will need the extra help.  The saddle with the pad weighs about 55 pounds!

Well,  I will get back to misery.  I will keep you posted.
Heather

Today was another great ride for Reynolds Racing!  Jeremy and our friend/client Carole Kraft Edwards rode the Calero Classic 50.  Jeremy was on our mare, Mya (Smitty and Stirgess' half sister) and Carole was on her own horse, Freebie Tiki.  The pair rode together all day.

 At the first vet check, which was 20 miles into the ride, they recovered 3rd and 4th.  Dennis Tracy and Diane Trifethon (SP?) were one and two and then Jeremy and Carole recovered next.  Shortly after leaving vet check one Dennis, unfortunately got lost moving everyone up a placing. 

Five miles later, 25 miles into the ride, was the one hour hold.  Jeremy, Carole and Diane all arrived together.  Jeremy and Carole recovered together and Diane was moments behind them.  After the hour Jeremy and Carole rode out and had a great second half.  Both horses were doing great and climbing the hills, hills and more hills.  Did I mention that this ride is really hilly?

  At the third vet check, mile 35, Jeremy and Carole had close to a ten minute lead and the horses looked great still.  They arrived and were both very hot so we spent a lot of time cooling them out all throughout their hold time.

All day Jeff Townsend, Megan Robinson and I were crewing and having a fun time keeping each other company while we awaited our riders.  Megan also is a ranger for the Open Space Preserve that this race goes into. She had to more or less stay stationed at that end of the park. 

Jeff and I went back to base camp to get things ready and then to sit and wait at the finish to see what would happen.  At 1 pm Jeremy and Carole trotted into view and crossed the finish line for a hand held tie.  What a fun ride!  It was Carole's second 50.  It was also her second ride on her new horse Freebie.  What a great duo. 

Fifteen minutes later we did our CRI's on both horses.  My was a 52/52 and Freebie was 52/56.  Not bad for a really hot and extremely hilly ride.

After a lot of feeding, cooling and icing legs it was finally time for Best Condition.  Carole and I practiced this for the first time with her as well as her horse Freebie about an hour before they showed.  We did not expect to be needing this kind of practice for a while to come yet, but oh well.

Mya showed well by trotting in her nice circles.  She really does not see a point in this sort of ritual and thinks we are all insane for demanding this of her.  Freebie also showed well.  Carole did well for her first attempt at this as it can be easy to get awkward on the circle portion your first few times showing.

After we finished our trot outs we had a great BB-Q dinner of the best corn imaginable, tri tip, salad and garlic bread.  I did not envy the poor guys having to BB-Q out in the sun.  Thank you to whoever was the cook.

After eating we loaded up and Jeremy and Carole headed home (a five minute drive) with the horses while I waited for the BC to be calculated and announced. 

It turned out to be worth the wait as Mya took BC and Freebie was reserve BC!!! 

Lori Oleson, the ride manager did an awesome job putting this ride together and keeping it very organized.  The trail was tough but there was plenty of water, views, a photographer and much more.

Heather

We had a blast at the Championship 50 mile Race!  We took 3 horses.  I rode Makazin on the AERC Champioship 50 for the Lightweight division, as well as the FEI ride.  Jeremy rode ITA Chicashah Bey on the AERC Championship contending for the Middleweight division.  Tim rode Rising Heat on the FEI ride wothout being in the Championship ride, so that the horse could get his 1* rating. 

We arrived on Friday and hung out in the beautiful camp.  Our race was on Sunday so we had time to relax.  We drove up in our new truck that we have named the "Work horse".  Look for it sometime at a ride, you won't miss it as it is very large!  (It is a Freightliner type truck, air horn and all!)

On Saturday we rode and went for a run and then took a swim as there was a pool in camp.  This camp is a kids camp during the summer and has all the amenities you would want, showers, pool, volleyball court, ponds, an out door lodge for eating and WIFI!  Very cool.  It was extremely scenic as well.

On Sunday we rode Bey and Makazin together.  The first 13 miles went by as expected.  We arrived a few minutes behind the lead group and the vet check was uneventful.  From here you had a decent climb up over a mountain to the 34 mile vet check back at camp.  We were climbing this hill pretty fast.  Our slowest speed on my GPS read 9.5 MPH.  However, we were getting passed left and right!!  Jeremy and I felt like we had been in a space capsule and returned to Earth to find new astronomical speeds in Endurance riding!!  If people rode like this all of the time we would still be winning World Championships!!  When we reached the top of the mountain I asked how far ahead the leaders were and was told 12 mins.  Ok, I could deal with this, they climbed faster, no big deal. 

We went down the mountain as fast as we could safely go.  Jeremy and I would not have ridden faster no matter who we had been riding down this mountain.  Near the bottom it narrowed to single track and then got extremely rocky. We walked through the rocks and this is when Bey fell down and skinned both knees!  Damn it.

We got into the vet check and both horses recovered right away and then to our relief they both vetted just fine, even with Bey's knees cut up.

I then asked how far back we were and was told that we were 25+ mins back and that we were in 13th place!  This was unreal.  I later asked Ken Keele how he had made so much time coming into vet check 2 and he said that he and the other front runner were riding between 18 and 25 MPH!!  That made me feel better.

We decided to really let the horses rip on the last 13 miles.  There were 2 good climbs and lots of rolling terrain and then a knee knocker single track near the very end.

We galloped out of the vet check and 20+ mins later caught someone... unreal!!  We got to the number check and surprised another group of riders.  I think they figured we would stop to cool our horses but instead we just yelled our numbers, spun around and took off again.

We ended up doing the 13 miles in :50 mins.  We smoked the trail and it was fun.  We tied for 4th.   (We were 12 mins behind the eventual winner, Ken Keele)  We then had to do a 15 min CRI.  When we were checking the horses before going to the vet (as FEI has one chance for your completion to pass the vet exam) we discovered that Bey's knees were bothering him finally.  We never did get him sound and he was pulled at the finish.  Makazin however looked awesome.  His CRI was 48/48 after all of that speed.

Makazin ended up winning the FEI ride as well as getting Best Condition on the FEI ride and was also moved from 4th to 3rd as the original winner had been pulled at the finish as well for not recovering.  He was also the Reserve National Lightweight Champion horse.  Pretty exciting as this is the first time we have ever allowed Makazin to move out!

Rising Heat aka Razin finished his ride at 4:30 with Tim.  He looked fresh and got his CEI1* completion!!  Very cool. 

In all it was really a great weekend with the exception of Bey's misfortune.  Even the drive was pretty!

Victory!!  We took 7 horses to the Shine & Shine Only FEI * 50 and ** 75.  All 7 finished.  All but one horse were entered in the FEI rides.  The horses did awesome on the extremely mountainous course.  We also lucked out with the heat, it was very warm but not impossibly hot like it could have been.  The horse and rider teams on the FEI* 50 were, Fuego IA ridden by Tim Reynolds, TA Tiran ridden by Sarah Schick (who flew in from VA), Stratagem ridden by young rider Ildy Nadasdy, and Makazin ridden by Kim Danardis (who flew in from NY).  In the AERC open 50 was ITA Chicashah Bey ridden by Megan Doyle. 
On the FEI **75 we had two horses, My Mamselle ridden by Jeremy and Ssamiam ridden by myself.  All in all it was a great weekend.  I would like to thank all of our riders for doing a superb job of getting the gang through safe and sound. 

Wow,

I have not been writing or doing any computer related things in a long time.  We are still in the Bay Area and still house hunting.  I feel like we have had a temporary lifestyle for WAY too long now.  The endurance horses are doing great.  We have a wonderful group of 10.  This does not count Gem who is in foal and should bring a bundle of talent to us sometime in March 2010.  The 10 endurance horses include two 4 year olds so in reality we are dealing with 8 working race horses plus client horses.

All of the horses ran on the track with the exception of Rising Heat and Stratagem.  Fuego ran and then was used as a pony on the track which came in handy last weekend at the Redwood Ride where he handily caught a loose horse in the morning.

We will be taking 6 of the horses to the Shine & Shine FEI ride on Aug 8th.  This is a logistical joy for me:)  Any how we will have Fuego IA, Makazin, TA tiran and Stratagem on the 50 FEI *.  Ssamiam and My Mamselle will do the 75 FEI **.  It should be  great ride with a lot of hills and heat ( at least it won't be humid!)

Our friend Sara is flying out from VA to ride TA Tiran, Sara rode with us when we were back East and had many adventures with us back there (including driving a stick shift for the first time, which was the dually that she crewed for us out of at the Old Dominion ride.  Oh, did I mention it was raining and muddy.  She handled it like a champ!)

Well, we are off to Robinson Flat in the morning to crew for a long time friend Jeff Townsend and his great horse Seize the Breeze aka Breeze.  It should be a great time for all.

I will try to write much more frequently.

Heather

We have a website!!  It is so exciting.  So far so good.  We have been riding a lot.  On Valentine's Day we had a great ride on the beach with our good friends, Megan and Maddy.  We took four of our horses: Strut, Smitty, GT and Miles.  Smitty of course went way further and faster then the rest of us.  All of the horses did great and we didn't get rained on!!

Jeremy and I are working on getting a full endurance operation going in the Bay Area.  We are living in the Almaden area in South San Jose.  The hills are big and the weather is generally nice (although at the moment it is really wet!!

We have many horses in training and we are really looking forward to the 2009 season that is in progress.  Our first ride will be at the 20 Mule Team ride

I am now working at one of Skip's Tire and Auto shops doing accounting, then I train horses as well.  Jeremy is trimming and training.  He will be doing a clinic sometime very soon to teach people how to apply the glue on boots.  Overall we are pretty busy and that is fun.  We are also able to see a lot of good friends again, although we now miss all of our new friends... that's always the case isn't it?

Working in Southern CA at the vitamin company ended up being very beneficial as we have designed a great supplement for performance horses that will be available soon.  We have been racing with it and it is pretty darn cool.

I forgot to keep you all posted on how Wild Man did.  He was looking strong in the last turn but then ended up third!  He will now continue his racing.  He is in Texas now preparing for the next leg of the "triple crown" for Arabians.

I hope that I see all of you soon.

Heather