Another competition and I knew this would be the most challenging one I'd ever done. Two weeks earlier, Bonnie and I had trailered to Heather's house to ride the first 12 miles of this ride. Heather is the ride manager of this ride. I'm glad we came for a pre-ride as the trails were a lot harder then I'd expected and Marie was a bit uncomfortable on the rockiest sections. I actually had second thoughts about entering the ride at all. In the end, I decided to buy four easy boots to put on Marie over her shoes so she wouldn't have trouble with the rocks and I entered the ride. Heather paired me up with Margaret Farnum to ride. I was happy about that as Marie and Promise travel well together. Margaret also had some second thoughts about entering this ride. In the end, she also decided to give it a try.
I didn't leave home as early as I'd planned but was still the first to arrive at the ride site. It was very, very hot out and I was grateful for the new truck with airconditioning. So was Zephyr. I pulled into the field where the sign was for the ride with another trailer pulling in right behind me. Heather's trailer was parked in the field and her mother was sitting in a chair beside the trailer. I went over and asked Heather's mother where we were supposed to park. She looked very unsure but said she thought we could park anywhere in the field. I was looking around for a port-a-pottie that should be there and some sign of avaible water. I didn't see either. The couple that pulled in behind me also asked where to park and were wondering the same things I was. Heather's mother got a bit abrupt with us and went back to sit at Heather's trailer leaving us with no clue what to do or where anything was. So, we decided to just wait until Heather showed up. We didn't want to go through the trouble of setting up our campsite and then have to move them if we were not where we belonged. So, we both pulled into the shade of some trees and opened up the trailers to keep the horses as cool as possible. Marie was perfectly happy in the trailer munching her hay and watching out her window. It wasn't long before Heather's father showed up. I've met him before and he is quite nice. He assured us that we could park anywhere we liked. The port-a-pottie was not there due the a breakdown of the truck delivering it. Water was in tub in Heather trailer. The field we were in had two windmills in it. One that supplimented the farms electricity and the other that ran the well pump. It didn't take long to set up camp and get Marie settled in her pen. She was quite happy about all the green grass available. It wasn't long before Margaret showed up. She set up camp next to me so that Promise and Marie would be near each other for company. Marie was as happy to see a familair face as I was. I made myself a sandwich and settled down in what little shade I could find to relax for a while. It was sooooooo hot that I was just wringing with sweat. There wasn't much shade for the horses but that didn't seem to bother them as much as the flies. Both Marie and Promise must have gotten down and rolled a hunderd times to scratch. Margaret had set up a tarp in Promise's pen so he could get under it for shade. He was not interested in it at all so Margaret and I ended up bringing our chairs into his pen and sitting under it. I was tired from working all night and then coming straight to the ride. I ended up falling asleep in the chair for a while. Margaret had a little Sony Walkman tape player with her and was playing Kenny Loggin music.
The vet was a little late arriving. It was a woman from Rochester, NH and it was her first time judging a ride. Janes Brunjes was the lay judge. It didn't take long to get vetted in. One the trot out, Marie spooked at some invisible booger and nearly ran me over! Mary Batt arrived around 6:30 PM. She quickly got her horse vetted in and then there was the riders meeting. As I suspected it sounded like the trail was going to be challanging. The ride time was being extended by 20 minutes so we would have 5 hrs. and 20 min. to 5 hrs. and 50 min. to complete the ride. I knew even that would be hard to make because fo the time it would take to get over Streaked Mountain. thankfully, the weather was supposed to be much cooler with less humidity tomorrow. That would make a big difference. Right after the riders meeting, I went into my trailer and heated up some soup for supper. Then I went right to bed. I did hear the Rojek's pull in sometime in the middle of the night with their big rig but fell right back to sleep. I was glad they had come to the ride. They are international competitors that have ridden all over the world. It would be interesting to see if they considered this ride challenging.
I was up at 5:00 AM and fed Marie. It was fairly nice but not as cool as I'd expected it to be. I heated some water for coffee and oatmeal. Heather did provide donuts and juice. After I ate, I got Marie and put her easy boots on. They are a pain to get on so I wanted to get it done early. Margaret and I were 3rd and 4th in the starting order. Mary was 9th but we figured she would be able to catch up with us. Margaret and I were off at 7:02 AM. We quickly caught up with the first pair out. Only a couple miles furter and Mary caught up to us. The climb up Streaked Mountain was tough. The first part of the trail up the mountain is steep with large rocks that you just have to bumble over. Then, there is several miles of near solid ledge, some of it quite steep. I would have thought the hores with flat steel shoes would have found this slippery footing but I didn't see any horses having trouble. We just went slow and careful. It was a nice clear day so the veiw from the top of the mountain was beautiful. Going down the mountain was quite a bit easier. There are several towers at the top of the mountain and we went down on the road that leads to the towers. It was still very steep in places but the footing was good. Mary and I were gabbing while riding along quite quickly and I noticed that we had gotten ahead of Margaret and Janice. They caught up to us at the first water stop. Heather was at the water stop at the bottom of the mountain. She told us the guy that was driving the truck with the big water tank, lost the tank out of the truck onto the road. The water tank holds 250 gallons and she said it slid a ways down the road before coming to a stop. He had to empty the water out before he could get the tank back into the truck. Then he had to go fill it again. Heather left while our horses were drinking. There were trail markers to take a left turn where the water buckets were. So, we took the turn and headed down the trail. We soon noticed there were no tracks on the trail ahead of us. This worried us because we knew there were a couple riders ahead of us. One was Cindy Seams who had helped Heather mark the trails. So, we couldn't imagine she would have taken a wrong turn. We went back to the water stop before going too far and sure enough we saw tracks going straight down the road. But, the trail markers clearly indicated to turn onto the trail on the left as we had. So, we headed back down the left hand trail. A mile or so later we came out on the old railroad bed. We rode down 4 miles of that to the hold. There was a nice pond 2 miles from the hold and we stopped to let the horses drink and to sponge them off. It was there I realized that I'd lost my sponge. Mary let me borrow hers to sponge Marie off with.
We kept moving at a pretty quick pace to the hold knowing we couldn't afford to waste any time. The hold was in a nice spot with plenty of room for the horses and vetting. We were the first ones into the hold. The group riding with Cindy Seams had indeed gone off trail and were now behind us. All the horses in our group passed the vetting with no problems. We fed them and managed to leave the hold on time. Just as we were heading out, another rider was coming into the hold and had my sponge. Yippee. Now, we had a decision to make. We either had to ride as fast as we dared in an attempt to finish on time and risk losing points for a possible high P&R at the end, or ride slower and lose points for a sure time penalty. We would lose one point for every minute were were over on our time. If you go 30 minutes over, you are disqualified. We decided to ride fast and take our chances with their P&R. The weather was good and it had actually cooled off and there was a nice breeze. We felt confident that our horse could handle the speed. Going out of the hold, we had six miles of the railroad bed to travel. We made excellent time on this. It was all flat with excellent footing and good for cantering. The rest of the trail was a mix of some dirt roads, some pavement with decent shoulder and some very rocky woods trail. We moved as fast as the terrain would permit. Along one stretch of dirt road, Margaret's horse nearly tripped over a young eagle. It was on the trail holding a squirrel and didn't want to give it up. It hopped down the trail directly in front of us trying to fly but was unable to get off the ground. The eagle finally released his prize and flew off. As we passed the mile markers for 3 to go, 2 to go and 1 to go, we knew we were close on time. The last mile was a narrow woods trail. We just ducked our heads to avoid hanging branches and moved along as quick as we could. When we came in sight of the finish line, we could see Heather waiting anxiously and waving us in. Margaret and I crossed the line with 10 seconds to spare!!! We were the first to finish. I quickly untacked Marie and sponged her off well. Margaret and I took the horses to the edge of the field by the woods so they would have some shade to stand under. Marie's pulse was over by a few points being 48 but I was quite pleased with that. Midori was also at 48. Promise pulsed down fine but the P&R person thought his respiration was slightly high. I could tell Marie was tired but she did a good trot out. Other then the fact that I dropped her lead rope and she took the opportunity to run back to my trailer. I had to chase her down and bring her back to finish our trot out. It was a while before hands on were done. Only 5 riders had managed to finish the ride on time. Six or seven others made it within the 30 minute window. The rest went past the disqualification time but Heather didn't want to eliminate them. She said one of the mile marker got torn down but that really wouldn't make any difference. Heather provided hamburgers, hot dogs and salad for lunch. And the port-a-pottie never did arrive so there were a lot of visits to the woods. Steve Rojek said this was indeed a very challenging ride. Margaret won grand champion! Not bad considering she was riding the oldest horse in the ride at 22 years old. And I won reserve champion on my little mutt of a QH.
Streaked Mt 30 ME 8/23 14/S-F
Judges: Dr. C England - J Brunjes
1. LWF Paljoe Promise / Farnum, Margaret
2. Marie / Ross, Cynthia (score 98.00)
3. FR Midori / Batt, Mary
4. Zaim / McKittrick, Janice
5. Shiloh / Seams, Cynthia
6. Dreamcatcher / Soscia, Joanne
7. Keona / Rojek, Dinah
8. Seagull / Barbosa, Hernan
9. Twopence Kelly / Gelston, Andy
10. Zephyr's Elegant Gift / Kenney, Sharon
11. Segway / Kallela, Sini
12. Rugby / Mersereau / Rene
13. Finch / Rojek, Steve
14. Lady Virginia "Nettie" / Tenggren, Traci
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