Mary Batt & Midori
Mary Batt with Midori and Susie Reinheimer with Cody
Susie lunging Cody
Vetting was to start at 3:00 PM. The lay judge showed up on time but the vet judge was quite late. He was coming from CT so had a long drive. He arrived around 4:30 PM. Marie vetted in nicely. Susie arrived while we were waiting in line to vet in. Marie recognized Susie's trailer right away but just called once to Cody then went back to munching grass. After vetting in, Bonnie and I settled Marie into her stall with her grain and lots of hay and water. She was drinking a lot which was good. Rich Gamester was catering the food for the ride. We had hamburgers, hot dogs and salad that night. He does a good job with the food. I took Marie out for a little walk after we ate and then settled her in for the night. Bonnie and I got talking with another woman that was driving. Her name was Kathie and her horses name was Shadow. Her mother had also come along to the ride with her. Kathie was telling us how strong and "naughty" Shadow could be. I told her that Marie was usually very quiet and steady. Kathie asked if she could possibly drive behind me figuring that Marie's calm steady pace would keep Shadow quiet. I told her that would be no problem at all. After Susie got Cody settled in, she came over to relax with us at camp. After the riders/drivers meeting, Susie and I went back to camp and got out our guitars. We played and sang until nearly 10:00 PM. by the light of......the flashlight. We had quite a few people gathered at our camp before we were done. we checked the horses one last time before going to bed.
Susie Reinheimer and Bonnie Hinz relaxing in camp
I slept great as usual in my home away from home. I got up around 5:00 AM, fed Marie and started looking around for where they were serving breakfast. Bonnie joined me and we had to wander around for a while before we found that they had set up the breakfast table in barn C. There was hot and cold cereals, muffins, donuts and coffee. I had the usual oatmeal and a donut to hold it down. Marie was a bit anxious while I was harnessing her up. Bonnie held her while I hitched her to the cart. Marie kept fidgeting around but Bonnie did a great job of keeping her under control. Marie had put on some weight and the shafts of the cart were a bit tight. There was one team being driven. They were very impressive all hitched up. The drivers safety inspection was at 6:45 AM. The ride/drive was starting at 7:00 AM. I thought I had everything I needed in my cart but boy was I wrong! I had everything that I'd had at my last competitive drive but obviously they hadn't done as thorough an inspection. I was missing a quarter sheet, hoof pick, hammer and a spare halter. I don't even own a quarter sheet. Luckily Bonnie does and it happened to be in my trailer. I raced to the trailer to gather the things I needed while Bonnie was left holding one very anxious Marie. By the time I got all the required items together and passed the safety inspection, it was time to head out. Marie was very happy to finally get moving. It didn't take long for Kathie and Shadow to catch up with us. Marie was very curious about who was behind us since she couldn't see them with blinders on. Marie soon settled into a nice steady pace and all was going well until another driver came racing up from behind and flew past us without much warning. Then, just up the trail a little way, the same drive was poking down the trail at a slow walk. So, we came up on her and slowed to a walk. She kept at a slow walk so we asked if she would mind if we passed her. Kathie and I went by and were on our way down the trail. Well, within a few minutes the woman came racing by us again. Then, within a few minutes we once again came up on her poking slowly down the trail. We passed her a second time since we wanted to keep up a steady pace. This pattern went on for a while with this driver racing by us then slowing down. By the sixth or seventh time Marie started pulling and getting a little strong with me. I had to really get after her to pay attention to me. Then we came up on all the other drivers lined up on the trail going nowhere.
Cindy Ross with Marie
Kathie Robbins with Alert's Shadow
Robin Cuffey with Golden Rule & Long Hill Soprano
Anita Jack with Deacon
Clara Hendin with Rohan Nimloth
Sondra Day with Ben Putnam
The Jorden Pond House gate was closed and locked and we couldn't get through. We all waited a while and finally the first rider came along. It was Heather. The gate is only a few miles from camp so we told Heather to let Colleen know that all the drivers were stuck at the gate. There is an archway beside the gate that the riders can go through. We waited about 40 minutes for someone to come open the gate. Many of the riders passed us in this time. I tried to really distract Marie when Susie and Cody went by. It seemed to work. When the gate was opened and we started going through, the woman who had kept racing by us started having trouble with her horse. The horse was backing up and getting upset. She couldn't stop him and he ended up backing into someones pickup truck. Due to the back up at the gate, all the driver came into the hold at the same time. This makes it hard for the ride workers to get everyone through the hold and out on time. If they can't, we are credited for the time we are held up. Kathie and I got an extra 15 minutes. We headed off on the second half of the drive in good shape. One of the things I had told Bonnie to remember when she agreed to come with me was that if anything happened, to bail out of the cart as quickly as possible. Well, at one point we were passing another cart and we were on the drop off side of the trail. Bonnie must have felt we were getting too close to the edge of the trail because she suddenly started climbing over me getting ready to bail out. I could see she was taking my advise to heart and it was going to be every woman for herself on this drive!
Acadia National Park wouldn't allow Colleen, the ride manager, to put up any marking ribbons on the trees or any of the usual paper plates with arrows on them that are traditionally used at the rides to mark the trails. She was only allowed to put up little white arrows on the signposts at the intersections. That was fine except someone thought it would be funny to remove a few of the markers. So, as you can guess, Kathie and I got to an intersection, saw no marker and assumed we were to go straight. A little further on Shadow started indicating he was thirsty. We stopped at a little stream. We couldn't get the horses to the water in the carts. Kathie saved the day with her collapsible bucket she had with her. Bonnie held Shadow while Kathie got water for Shadow. Then Bonnie held Marie while I got water for her. Both horses drank a lot. We were soon on our way again with much happier horses. We were almost to the end of the "Around the Mountain" trail when we met up with a group of riders coming down the trail in our direction. That was not supposed to happen. And I don't know why they call this particular trial the "AROUND the Mountain" trail since it so obviously goes OVER THE MOUNTAIN!! We had already done this trail once on the first half of the dive. The riders told us that we had all taken a wrong turn and had to go back to the last intersection we'd passed. This was going to add about 8 miles to our ride/drive. The riders took off at a fast pace in an effort to make up for the time they lost. Kathie and I turned the horses around and headed back. It was going to be far harder for Kathie and me to make up our lost time since we couldn't safely travel as fast as the rider with our carts. We hadn't gone very far when we came across Heather coming down the trail in our direction. Her horse, Mariah, started freaking out when she saw our carts heading towards her. Heather jumped off and started yelling, "I've been lost twice today, I've fallen off, I've been dragged and I'm not going to turn around again! They will just have to come pick me up with a horse trailer!" Well, since no motorized vehicles are allowed on the trails, we knew this was not going to happen. We got Heather calmed down and back on her horse and she headed back with us. It wasn't long before she started saying she was very thirsty. I looked back and she truly did not look well. She hadn't brought any water with her and was getting dehydrated. Bonnie and I gave her our water. We ended up going over the mountain on the "Around the Mountain" trail three times that day. We just couldn't make up all our lost time and actually came in 5 minutes past our disqualification time. We didn't know how ride management would handle this situation since it wasn't our fault the markers had been removed. Colleen rode out to confirm the markers were gone and we were not disqualified. YEAH! Bonnie and I got Marie unhitched and sponged her down outside. Then I put her in her stall to cool down. Marie passed her P&R and trot out with flying colors despite the extra miles going over the mountain. The only problem was the shafts of the cart had rubbed her sides and there were swollen sore spots on each side of her. I felt sooooo bad when I saw this. Marie had never given me any indication that she was feeling any discomfort. I applied cold water to her side to make her more comfortable and keep the swelling down. Bonnie and I had to figure out something to do with the cart or we weren't going to be going out for the second day of the ride. Luckily, my cart has metal shafts and we were able to bend them out. If only we had thought to do this to begin with. Sigh.... The woman that had been racing by us all day had broken the frame on her cart. She had one of the men look at it to see if he could patch it up so she could go out the second day. Bonnie, the sweetheart that she is, cleaned out Marie's stall for me. We took the pads off Marie's harness, hosed them down and cleaned the harness. Then Bonnie and I went back to camp and hug out relaxing while munching on snacks. Susie had taken a couple of people to the public showers to clean up. Bonnie and I didn't go since driving the cart doesn't make you hot and sweaty like riding does. Supper was great that night. We had a choice of lobster or chicken. There was salad, rolls, clam chowder, potato and corn on the cob. After supper I walked Marie around for a while before going back to the trailer for the night. It wasn't long before the guitars came out and we had another sing-a-long. We didn't stay up quite as late as the previous night since we were all tired.
We were up early again. It had rained during the night and was still very foggy with a heavy mist. The rider/drives meeting was at 6:30 AM. It ran a bit last since people were a bit paranoid about getting lost again. We drivers had to really rush to get the horses harnessed, hitched and through the safety inspection on time. The shafts of my cart are fine now that Bonnie and I have bent them out. Marie's sides looked ok except for some missing hair. I went out a couple minutes late. Kathie was right behind me. Since the second day of the ride/drive is only 20 miles, there would be no hold. Things were going well so Kathie asked if I would mind if she and Shadow led for a while. That made Marie very happy as now she could see her driving partner.
Cindy Ross and Bonnie Hinz with Marie on trail
We had to stop once when Shadow broke his tie down. Bonnie tied it to his breast collar to keep it out of the way. While we were stopped we all took the opportunity for a quick trip out into the woods to.......to check out the wildlife.... Bonnie, once again, was a big help with holding the horses. Because of the mist, Kathie and I had both taken off our glasses. We had to be very careful at the intersections watching the markers. At one point we did take a wrong turn but realized it right away. We turned around which put me ahead of Kathie and Shadow. It was just a short stretch back to the intersession where we had gone wrong. I pulled down a side trail to get out of Kathie's way so she could take the lead again. Marie thought I wanted her to go in the opposite direction of her new friend Shadow and had a temper tantrum. She reared up when I wouldn't let her turn around immediately. Luckily, I had my whip in hand and quickly gave her a smack on the butt. It surprised her and she bolted forward a short distance. Bonnie was already half way out of the cart when I got Marie stopped. Bonnie was obviously taking no chances. Marie behaved after that. I guess she can't be perfect all the time. Shadow had been getting strong with Kathie and she was getting tired of fighting with him so Marie and I took the lead again. Shortly after that, along came the "racing woman". She flew by us without warning in a rather narrow spot narrowly missing us and startling our horses. And, sure enough, we soon came up on her poking slowly down the trail in front of us. We just slowed way down to give her time to get well ahead of us. That worked since we didn't see her again until just before the finish line. About 2 miles from the finish, Bonnie was in the process of cleaning my glasses for me when we heard Kathie yell, "Help me, I need help!" We had just rounded a sharp corner and for some reason Shadow decided not to finish the turn and had gone into the ditch. There was a huge rock right in that particular spot and it had jammed between the wheel and body of the cart. The cart stopped and threw Shadow into the rock gashing one back leg. He jumped back out of the ditch but couldn't go anywhere with the cart wedged on the rock. Bonnie immediately jumped out of my cart and went to Kathie's aid. Bonnie really kept her head and approached Shadow calmly and quietly taking hold of his bridle. Kathie, of course, was a bit shook up and wasn't sure what to do at first. They couldn't back Shadow out of the ditch and off the rock without risking further injury to Shadow. Kathie got out of the cart and was able to lift the wheel over the end of the rock while Bonnie slowly led Shadow forward and back onto the road. Once again, Bonnie saved the day! I don't think I will ever do a competitive drive without a groom! The gash on Shadow's leg looked nasty but he didn't seem at all lame and it wasn't bleeding much. We were close to camp and running short on time so we decided to move right along as quickly as we safely could and just get back. We finished with only a few minutes to spare. Bonnie and I got Marie unhitched and Bonnie took her in her stall to sponge her off. Marie's pulse was a bit higher then desired but her respiration was low and she was fine. Her trot out was great. I knew I'd lose points for the missing hair from the shaft rubs though. We had another great meal provided by Rich. Honey ham, baked potato, asparagus, and cookies. Susie, as usual, was rushing around trying to get everything packed up as quickly as possible so she could bolt for home. We had the award ceremony right after the meal. If I had fixed the shafts on my cart for the first day of the drive I would have won the driving division!! AARRGHHH! I was so mad at myself. Well, we all knew how well Marie had done. She is an amazingly tough horse with a big heart. We did get high point rookie driver, high point rookie horse as well as high point grade horse. It didn't take long for Bonnie and I to pack up. Bonnie, the woman sent from heaven, stripped down Maries stall while I packed up the trailer. What a great ride/drive. I really enjoyed driving with Kathie, she was so much fun. I hope to see her again soon. Her mom was so nice too.
Acadia 50 ME 6/7-8 6/S-F
Judges: Dr. Gorra - J Lorimer
1p. long Hill Soprano / Cuffey, Robyn
1p. the Golden Rule
1s. Rophan Nimloth / Hendin, Clara
2s. Ben Putnam / Day, Sondra
2s. Marie / Ross, Cynthia (score 94.50)
4s. Deacon / Jack, Anita
5s Alert's Shadow / Robbins, Kathie
