Well, of course there is a pre-trip story to this trip. The pre-trip story being that there was not supposed to be any trip for Marie and I. Bonnie, Linda, and Halla had made plans to make two trips to Arcadia earlier in the year. One trip in June and a 3 night trip in October. I was invited to both trips but had to pass. I was so busy with the Triathlon until June. After that I was buckling down and spending any extra money I had on the kitchen. I had cancelled all my CTR and Endurance rides for the year also. Well, just a few weeks before the October trip to Arcadia, Bonnie called me to tell me that Linda would not be able to go for the first two nights of the trip. Linda wanted me to take her stalls for those two nights and Bonnie had already reserved me a stall for the third night. How could I say no! Yippeeeeeeeee. I was going to Arcadia.
Several days before the trip I started coming down with a cold and got a UTI! Great. Oh, and don’t forget the cramps. Darn it! I didn’t care, I was going if it killed me. Bonnie and I headed out Friday morning. At the last minute we decided to bring along Isabelle’s cart in case we got brave enough to drive her. We stopped at Wal-Mart in Waterville and I bought medicine for everything! We stopped at Dysart’s in Bangor for lunch. Dysart’s is soooooooo good. Great food at a very reasonable price. I had beef stew in a bread bowl that was absolutely delicious. We were good girls and split a piece of pumpkin pie. We arrived at Wildwood stables around 1:00 PM. and quickly checked in. Halla was already there. The horses were all in barn C for the first night then on Saturday we would have to move them all to barn B for the rest of the stay. We unloaded the trailer and got the horses all settled in. We had the two campsites on the end which was nice. We got the trailers parked and our camp set up. Halla has a nice canopy now that is all one piece and sets up very quickly and easily. We rested for a bit in camp and then headed out for a quick ride. We did the Day Mountain Loop. It was a beautiful clear day so we had a great view from the top. We passed quite a few of the big carriages along the way. The horses were all good. After we returned, we cleaned up a bit and went to the Jorden Pond House for supper. Very pricey but quite good. It’s definitely a tourist trap but we just can’t resist the place. $15 for a grilled chicken breast, I didn’t even look at the price of the scallops I ordered! Hahahaha. They are famous for their popovers which we all had several of. After supper, we went back to camp, fed the horses and settled them in for the night. We hung out at the campsite for a while. I had taken a dose of Nyquil so I was soon off to bed.
I was up several times during the night so didn’t get the best nights rest. I didn’t get too cold during the night for which I was thankful. I got up around 6:00AM and headed over to feed the horses. Bonnie said she would be right over. She fell back to sleep and Halla was up before her! We had to tease her a bit about that since Halla is always the last one to get up. After feeding the horses we heated some water for coffee. I had my usual oatmeal and we had breads and bagels. We hung around until it was time to move the horses at 9:30 AM or so. After we got the horses settled into their new stalls, we saddled up and headed out for a ride. We did the loop up by Eagle Lake. We took it pretty slow and easy. There was lots of time for talking. After the ride, we sat around camp and had a bit of lunch. Around 4 PM. I decided I was brave enough to try driving Isabelle. Bonnie would ride Marie. We needed to keep the horses together so Isabelle would stay quiet and happy. We got Isabelle hitched up without problems and headed put to the Jorden Pond House gate. Isabelle was a bit hesitant about pulling the cart up the big hill out of the camp. She’s never pulled the cart with anyone in it up a steep hill and the weight on the breast strap confused her a bit but she did it and even made the fairly sharp turn at the top. She did very well. She has only been hitched a few times. At one point she broke into a canter trying to catch up to the other horses. I pulled her in and she settled down after a bit. It took a bit of patience to get her tuned around at the Pond House gate. I didn’t have much more then the width of the road to work with. With a little patience and quiet handling, Isabelle figured it out and we headed back. Halla was having trouble keeping her horse in a set place while we were out. Isabelle gets a bit nervous when a horse passes her from behind I really needed Halla to either stay behind me or stay in front of me. After passing me, and then dropping behind me several time, I lost my nerve and got out of the cart and led Isabelle the rest of the way back to camp. Isabelle, was doing ok but I am such a big chicken when it comes to driving. Better to end the drive on a good note then take any chances. We stayed in camp that night for super. We had a soup that Bonnie had prepared at home. There was a community campfire that we sat at for a while. Everyone seemed to be telling stories of all the horrible equine accidents they’d either witnessed or experienced! Naturally, I had a few of my own to tell. But, once again the Nyquil got the best of me and I went to bed fairly early. I slept well the second night.
I wish I could finish this journal properly, but, it is now 6 month later and I just don’t remember the rest of the trip in much detail. I’ll just put down what I do recall.
I do remember that I spent most of the weekend in a Nyquil haze! Hahahaha.
The 3rd day, we had breakfast in camp again. We went out riding twice and put on quite a few miles. The riding was nice. We did a bit more trotting and some cantering. Isabelle got a bit excited about keeping up with us at one point and nearly lost Bonnie coming around a corner. Bonnie managed to save it and no harm was done. Linda came up sometime that day. She went out with us on our second ride. I believe we did Day Mountain loop. We were going to go to the Jorden Pond house again for supper. We were meeting some friends of Halla’s that had come up that day. When we put the horses back after the second ride, Isabelle was acting a bit off. She would not eat hay and was acting a bit listless and then laid down. We put off going to supper. We all brought our chairs down to the barn. We decided to stay there until we were sure Isabelle was ok. After a while, she did get up and start eating and drinking and acting normal. We had ridden a bit hard for her that day and she just got a bit over tired. We had another nice meal at the Jorden Pond House. Halla’s friends were very interesting and fun to talk to. That evening, we hung around the community campfire again for a while, until the Nyquil kicked in of course! Hahaha.
The last morning we woke to the smell of fresh brewed coffee! Linda is wonderful, she knows how to make good perked coffee! After breakfast, we went out for one final short ride. Isabelle kicked Slick. I think she was still a bit tired and feeling a bit crabby. No damage was done. We quickly broke camp when we got back and headed home. Bonnie and I stopped at Dysart’s again on the way home for another great meal there.
Friday, October 1, 2004
Saturday, April 24, 2004
Hidden Brook 25 CTR Norway, ME April 2004
The first ride of the season! YEAH! There are several pre-ride stories to this first adventure of the season. My neighbor’s daughter, Cheyenne, has been riding my pony, Isabelle, for a while now. Cheyenne was going to ride Isabelle in the competition. Four weeks prior to the ride, Heather e-mailed me asking for help to find a new vet judge for the ride. The vet that had agreed to judge the ride found himself unable to do so due to his partner having a baby and taking some time off. Heather told me she would waive my entry fee if I helped her out. So, I agreed. She e-mailed me the list of ECTRA certified judges to call. I started by calling the vets in Maine, then NH and MA. Next I started on the ones in VT, CT and NY. No luck. It is a bad time of year to get a vet on short notice with spring shots and birthing season for so many animals. Finally I called my own vet and begged. He wasn’t able to judge the ride but did recommend Dr. Stephanie Heikanin . She is a local vet she thought would help us out. She had never judged a Competitive ride before but she had helped out on a few Endurance rides. I called Stephanie and she agreed to judge the ride. There were, of course, two catches. First, she was not a certified judge and would have to become one to do the ride. The second was that she couldn’t get to the ride on Friday until 7:00 PM. I e-mailed Heather to see if we could work around these two problems. Heather contacted the ECTRA office to see about getting Stephanie certified. ECTRA prefers certifications to be at least a month in advance but in light of the vet judge shortage in ME, we got the ok to let Stephanie take the test. The ECTRA office said they would fax the test to Stephanie and she could fax it back. That all seemed like a good plan except the ECTRA office had trouble faxing the test. First they had the wrong number, then Stephanie called several times saying she still hadn’t received it. That didn’t get all straightened out until almost a week before the ride. As to the second problem of Stephanie not being able to get to the competition until 7:00 PM, that also worked out. The stable where the ride was being held has a big indoor arena. They re-arranged their lessons to allow us to use the arena so we would be able to keep vetting horses in after dark.
Phew! This competition was a ride and drive. Heather wasn’t getting any drive entries and sent out several e-mails encouraging people to enter driving horses. Marie is trained to drive but I couldn’t handle driving her and keeping an eye on Cheyenne since it would be her and Isabelle’s first ride. I asked Bonnie if she would like to go with me as my groom if I did drive. That way she could help out Cheyenne if they had any problems. I just needed to find out if they would let a rider go out with a driver. The drivers always all go out ahead of the riders. But, I needed to keep Cheyenne with me and the two horses together. Bonnie agreed to go and Heather said that Cheyenne could start with me. So, Things seemed to all be falling into place. Well, not so. Two weeks prior to the ride, I realize that the week of the ride is school vacation week. Cheyenne and her sister were going to NY to visit their dad for the week. Her mom apparently forgot when the ride was and no one informed Cheyenne’s dad that he would have to bring her home early to go to the ride that Friday. Cheyenne’s dad picked her up and she went to NY and still I had no answer about when she would be back. Finally, the Wednesday before the ride, a very disappointed Cheyenne called me from NY to tell me that her dad couldn’t get the time off work to get her home early. Poor girl! So, Bonnie made the last minute decision to take Cheyenne’s place and ride Isabelle in the competition. I was relieved that I would be able to bring both horses. Bonnie is going to buy Isabelle in the fall so this would be good for them both.
Since the vetting was going to be later in the evening, Bonnie and I didn’t rush to leave for the ride. Bonnie brought her trailer and we put my cart in that. She was bringing her dog, Minnie, and wanted her own space to see how it would go for Minnie’s first overnighter. Minnie is a 9 month old Min Pin. We headed out around 11:00. Susie was already there when we arrived. There was still plenty of parking and I got a nice spot. Bonnie ended up parking a ways away from me since she didn’t want to take up any spaces needed for trailers with horses. Fred bought me a “Spring tie” for Christmas. This is an arm that is mounted 7’ up on the trailer that swivels. A lead rope is connected to the end of it that just reaches the ground. When a horse is tied to it, the lead line stays up and out of the way of the horse’s feet. It gives them as much room to move around as a 12x12 stall and they can even lie down. A really neat rig and it requires no set up time when you get to the ride. I planned to try it out with Marie and put Isabelle in the portable electric pen. I wasn’t sure how that would go since it was Isabelle’s first overnighter and she has very little respect for electric fencing. We got the horses all settled in, camp set up and things seemed to be going fine. Then, Isabelle realized that Lady was just a few campsites up from us. Lady is the horse Bonnie owned previously and Isabelle had been stabled with her for a while. Isabelle got all excited and plowed the fence right down. She was quite proud of herself and ran around a bit looking quite impressive with her high stepping and tail up in the air. Isabelle wouldn’t let me get near her. She ran over to visit with Lady and Heather managed to catch her. I quickly decided that maybe Isabelle should go on the “Spring-tie” and Marie in the pen. That worked much better. Supper that night was going to be Pizza. We know it would be late before we got the Pizza so I made myself a sandwich and some coffee. Margaret arrived much to Zephyr’s delight. Zephyr worships her dog, Grizz. We sat for a while and visited after Margaret got her camp set up. Bonnie and I took the dogs for a walk. Minnie was very excited about all the new stuff and all the dogs there were around. A little after six, we started gathering near the arena with our horses. Bonnie and I were near the front of the line. I was anxious to meet the new vet that I had hired for this ride. I brought Marie into the arena for hands on which went fine. Then the trot-out. When I got done the vet tells me that Marie is dead lame on the right hind!!!!! AAGGHHH. Marie is not a pretty mover and she always travels funny with her hind end. She was NOT lame. I go through this every time a new vet sees her. After a bit of haggling, she agreed to let me vet again in the morning to see if Marie looked any better. I know that she would look just the same but it was the best I was going to get from the vet. Bonnie vetted in and the vet didn’t like the way Isabelle looked either. The vet thought Isabelle looked like she lifted her right hip a bit higher then the left but conceded that maybe it’s just the way she travels. So, Bonnie also had to vet again in the morning. Now wouldn’t it be ironic if the vet I hired wouldn’t let me start! The pizzas arrived soon after Bonnie and I were done vetting in. We quickly settled the horses back in at camp and went back up to the arena for pizza. Just after dark, I was heading back to camp from the arena when I heard the dreaded sound of a horse going through a fence. Suddenly, I see a large, panicked horse galloping up the road toward me dragging its whole portable electric pen! There were fences on either side of me and I had nowhere to go! Thankfully, the horse managed to kick free of the fencing it was dragging just before it reached me and thundered harmlessly past. Unfortunately, when that horse got loose, it spooked several other horses in pens nearby and 2 more horses got loose. They galloped around camp a few times then headed down a woods trail that led to the main road. We followed them to the road but they were long gone already. So, we went back to camp to go out looking in cars. I stayed in camp since enough people had already headed out in cars to search. The horses were found nearly an hour later. The sheriff called us with their location. Someone had driven off the road trying to avoid hitting them. Horses and driver were ok though the car sustained some damage. The horses were brought back to camp safe and sound. When that excitement was over, Bonnie and I realized we had never asked what time to come back for the vetting in the morning. We headed up to the arena where the vet was just finishing when we heard Sue Greenall yelling. Before we knew it, both of her horses went galloping by us right out the driveway and onto the road. Bonnie and I gave chase but the horses were moving too fast. Just as we were heading back to camp, Heather came by in her truck. Bonnie and I jumped in the back so we could watch for fresh tracks. Heather had a big water tank in the back and Bonnie and I had to squeeze in and really hug that thing to not fall out. We went up a dirt road and found some fresh tracks we thought might belong to the escaped horses. They were heading back toward camp so we followed them to the paved road. While we were there trying to decide where they might have gone, Abby came by in her car to let us know that the horses had been caught and were already back in camp. Phew! By the time we got back to camp, Bonnie and I had nearly frozen to death riding in the back of Heather’s truck. Susie, Mary, Heather, Bonnie, Margaret, and I hung out and visited by my trailer. I heated water for hot chocolate. Margaret had brought some “flavoring” to add to it. Heather eventually joined us. A little after 10:00 PM we all headed for bed.
I didn’t sleep very well. It was very cold. My sleeping bag is rated for 0 degrees but I needed to add a blanked over it to get comfortably warm. Zephyr cuddled up to me under the blanket just as close as he could get. Just as I got nice and toasty warm, I had to get up for a call of nature. I also have to get used to the sounds that the horse makes on the new “Spring-tie”. When you camp with horses, every unusual sound wakes you up. It’s a good thing I had the alarm clock with me. I was finally sleeping soundly when the alarm went off at 5:00 AM. I got up and put on some water to heat. I fed the horses and cleaned up after them. We had to be re-vetted at 6:30 AM. Apparently Bonnie was quite comfortable in her trailer. She nearly overslept. I had my usual oatmeal and coffee. We took the horses up and did our trot-out and the vet still insisted Marie was lame. She didn’t want to let me start the ride. I argued (nicely) with her and she finally agreed to let me start. She warned me to expect to be pulled at the hold. I wasn’t worried since I knew that Marie was fine. As we were heading back to camp to get the horses ready, Lady and Isabelle got calling to each other. Suddenly, Isabelle rammed into Bonnie, spun around pulling out of her hand and kicked. Off she went to visit with Lady. Luckily, Bonnie was knocked down when Isabelle rammed her while spinning around. That kick would have been nasty otherwise. As it was, Isabelle still connected with Bonnie’s hand which swelled up and was quite sore later. Naughty pony!!!!! After we caught Isabelle, I led her up and down by Lady’s camp and let her know that I thought she had better behave. Drivers would be starting before the riders. Drivers had a 15 minute window from 8 to 8:15 to start as we were ready. Riders would be start going out at 8:30 AM. There was only one other driver in the competition. Bonnie and I headed out around 8:04. The course consisted mostly of dirt road, some tar road and a little bit of woods trail. We were setting quite a slow pace for Isabelle. Being her first ride and being only 8 months since she was first trained, we didn’t want to burn her out mentally. I know that she could physically handle the distance, but I also know that she would be more tired then she has ever been and would be feeling quite sorry for herself. All went well. The woods trail was a bit rough in the cart but Marie and I managed it. It was a lot of work for her pulling me through some deep mud. About 3 miles out from the hold, the riders started catching up to and passing us. When Susie and Cody came along, I knew I would have some trouble. I was right. Marie got all excited when she saw Cody and wanted to keep up with him. I was able to hold her back until Cody got out of sight. Unfortunately, on this part of the trail, we were going up to a water stop and then turning around and coming back the same way. Bonnie and I left the water stop ahead of Susie so she ended up passing us a second time. That was more then Marie could handle. She flipped out and bolted down the road after Cody. I pulled back and kept trying to calmly tell her to whoa. She did slow down but started hopping and bucking in the cart having a temper tantrum. There were a lot of riders on the road at this point going in both directions. Everyone was clearing off the road a fast as they could to get out of our way. Marie put on quite a show for everyone but we finally got things under control and managed to continue on our way. We got to the hold without any more trouble. Marie was very nervous at the hold. She knew all her buddies were there and she wanted to be with them. The trot out went fine. The vet admitted that Marie didn’t look a bit different and we were allowed to finish the ride. Isabelle’s P&R’s were fantastic. She was right down to resting rate within 10 minutes. We were held up a bit at the hold and got out 9 minutes over our time. They would have to add that back to our total ride time. The second loop went without incident. All the riders eventually passed us. I knew we would not make our time and would be disqualified. I didn’t care as long as everything went well for Bonnie and Isabelle. About half way around the second loop, Isabelle decided she had’d had enough and tried to quite on Bonnie. Bonnie handled it great. She patiently persisted in making Isabelle move forward and finally Isabelle realized she wasn’t going to get away with being lazy with Bonnie and was fine the rest of the way. We did end up finishing the ride about 10 minutes over the disqualification time. Even though we had disqualified, we requested a complimentary vetting so we could see how the horses scored. And I wanted the vet to see that Marie was fine. The vet admitted that she still looked just the same so couldn’t be lame after all. By the time we had finished the ride, the wind had picked up and was blowing real hard. It was causing some big dust devils to be whirling around. It made our outside supper a bit of a challenge to eat. Heather’s father set up his grill between two horse trailers to get some protection form the wind. He was cooking hot dogs and hamburgers. There was also salad. Once again we were grateful for the use of the indoor arena for the final vetting and then the awards. It gave us some relief from the wind. Susie got Reserve Champion of the ride!
Phew! This competition was a ride and drive. Heather wasn’t getting any drive entries and sent out several e-mails encouraging people to enter driving horses. Marie is trained to drive but I couldn’t handle driving her and keeping an eye on Cheyenne since it would be her and Isabelle’s first ride. I asked Bonnie if she would like to go with me as my groom if I did drive. That way she could help out Cheyenne if they had any problems. I just needed to find out if they would let a rider go out with a driver. The drivers always all go out ahead of the riders. But, I needed to keep Cheyenne with me and the two horses together. Bonnie agreed to go and Heather said that Cheyenne could start with me. So, Things seemed to all be falling into place. Well, not so. Two weeks prior to the ride, I realize that the week of the ride is school vacation week. Cheyenne and her sister were going to NY to visit their dad for the week. Her mom apparently forgot when the ride was and no one informed Cheyenne’s dad that he would have to bring her home early to go to the ride that Friday. Cheyenne’s dad picked her up and she went to NY and still I had no answer about when she would be back. Finally, the Wednesday before the ride, a very disappointed Cheyenne called me from NY to tell me that her dad couldn’t get the time off work to get her home early. Poor girl! So, Bonnie made the last minute decision to take Cheyenne’s place and ride Isabelle in the competition. I was relieved that I would be able to bring both horses. Bonnie is going to buy Isabelle in the fall so this would be good for them both.
Since the vetting was going to be later in the evening, Bonnie and I didn’t rush to leave for the ride. Bonnie brought her trailer and we put my cart in that. She was bringing her dog, Minnie, and wanted her own space to see how it would go for Minnie’s first overnighter. Minnie is a 9 month old Min Pin. We headed out around 11:00. Susie was already there when we arrived. There was still plenty of parking and I got a nice spot. Bonnie ended up parking a ways away from me since she didn’t want to take up any spaces needed for trailers with horses. Fred bought me a “Spring tie” for Christmas. This is an arm that is mounted 7’ up on the trailer that swivels. A lead rope is connected to the end of it that just reaches the ground. When a horse is tied to it, the lead line stays up and out of the way of the horse’s feet. It gives them as much room to move around as a 12x12 stall and they can even lie down. A really neat rig and it requires no set up time when you get to the ride. I planned to try it out with Marie and put Isabelle in the portable electric pen. I wasn’t sure how that would go since it was Isabelle’s first overnighter and she has very little respect for electric fencing. We got the horses all settled in, camp set up and things seemed to be going fine. Then, Isabelle realized that Lady was just a few campsites up from us. Lady is the horse Bonnie owned previously and Isabelle had been stabled with her for a while. Isabelle got all excited and plowed the fence right down. She was quite proud of herself and ran around a bit looking quite impressive with her high stepping and tail up in the air. Isabelle wouldn’t let me get near her. She ran over to visit with Lady and Heather managed to catch her. I quickly decided that maybe Isabelle should go on the “Spring-tie” and Marie in the pen. That worked much better. Supper that night was going to be Pizza. We know it would be late before we got the Pizza so I made myself a sandwich and some coffee. Margaret arrived much to Zephyr’s delight. Zephyr worships her dog, Grizz. We sat for a while and visited after Margaret got her camp set up. Bonnie and I took the dogs for a walk. Minnie was very excited about all the new stuff and all the dogs there were around. A little after six, we started gathering near the arena with our horses. Bonnie and I were near the front of the line. I was anxious to meet the new vet that I had hired for this ride. I brought Marie into the arena for hands on which went fine. Then the trot-out. When I got done the vet tells me that Marie is dead lame on the right hind!!!!! AAGGHHH. Marie is not a pretty mover and she always travels funny with her hind end. She was NOT lame. I go through this every time a new vet sees her. After a bit of haggling, she agreed to let me vet again in the morning to see if Marie looked any better. I know that she would look just the same but it was the best I was going to get from the vet. Bonnie vetted in and the vet didn’t like the way Isabelle looked either. The vet thought Isabelle looked like she lifted her right hip a bit higher then the left but conceded that maybe it’s just the way she travels. So, Bonnie also had to vet again in the morning. Now wouldn’t it be ironic if the vet I hired wouldn’t let me start! The pizzas arrived soon after Bonnie and I were done vetting in. We quickly settled the horses back in at camp and went back up to the arena for pizza. Just after dark, I was heading back to camp from the arena when I heard the dreaded sound of a horse going through a fence. Suddenly, I see a large, panicked horse galloping up the road toward me dragging its whole portable electric pen! There were fences on either side of me and I had nowhere to go! Thankfully, the horse managed to kick free of the fencing it was dragging just before it reached me and thundered harmlessly past. Unfortunately, when that horse got loose, it spooked several other horses in pens nearby and 2 more horses got loose. They galloped around camp a few times then headed down a woods trail that led to the main road. We followed them to the road but they were long gone already. So, we went back to camp to go out looking in cars. I stayed in camp since enough people had already headed out in cars to search. The horses were found nearly an hour later. The sheriff called us with their location. Someone had driven off the road trying to avoid hitting them. Horses and driver were ok though the car sustained some damage. The horses were brought back to camp safe and sound. When that excitement was over, Bonnie and I realized we had never asked what time to come back for the vetting in the morning. We headed up to the arena where the vet was just finishing when we heard Sue Greenall yelling. Before we knew it, both of her horses went galloping by us right out the driveway and onto the road. Bonnie and I gave chase but the horses were moving too fast. Just as we were heading back to camp, Heather came by in her truck. Bonnie and I jumped in the back so we could watch for fresh tracks. Heather had a big water tank in the back and Bonnie and I had to squeeze in and really hug that thing to not fall out. We went up a dirt road and found some fresh tracks we thought might belong to the escaped horses. They were heading back toward camp so we followed them to the paved road. While we were there trying to decide where they might have gone, Abby came by in her car to let us know that the horses had been caught and were already back in camp. Phew! By the time we got back to camp, Bonnie and I had nearly frozen to death riding in the back of Heather’s truck. Susie, Mary, Heather, Bonnie, Margaret, and I hung out and visited by my trailer. I heated water for hot chocolate. Margaret had brought some “flavoring” to add to it. Heather eventually joined us. A little after 10:00 PM we all headed for bed.
I didn’t sleep very well. It was very cold. My sleeping bag is rated for 0 degrees but I needed to add a blanked over it to get comfortably warm. Zephyr cuddled up to me under the blanket just as close as he could get. Just as I got nice and toasty warm, I had to get up for a call of nature. I also have to get used to the sounds that the horse makes on the new “Spring-tie”. When you camp with horses, every unusual sound wakes you up. It’s a good thing I had the alarm clock with me. I was finally sleeping soundly when the alarm went off at 5:00 AM. I got up and put on some water to heat. I fed the horses and cleaned up after them. We had to be re-vetted at 6:30 AM. Apparently Bonnie was quite comfortable in her trailer. She nearly overslept. I had my usual oatmeal and coffee. We took the horses up and did our trot-out and the vet still insisted Marie was lame. She didn’t want to let me start the ride. I argued (nicely) with her and she finally agreed to let me start. She warned me to expect to be pulled at the hold. I wasn’t worried since I knew that Marie was fine. As we were heading back to camp to get the horses ready, Lady and Isabelle got calling to each other. Suddenly, Isabelle rammed into Bonnie, spun around pulling out of her hand and kicked. Off she went to visit with Lady. Luckily, Bonnie was knocked down when Isabelle rammed her while spinning around. That kick would have been nasty otherwise. As it was, Isabelle still connected with Bonnie’s hand which swelled up and was quite sore later. Naughty pony!!!!! After we caught Isabelle, I led her up and down by Lady’s camp and let her know that I thought she had better behave. Drivers would be starting before the riders. Drivers had a 15 minute window from 8 to 8:15 to start as we were ready. Riders would be start going out at 8:30 AM. There was only one other driver in the competition. Bonnie and I headed out around 8:04. The course consisted mostly of dirt road, some tar road and a little bit of woods trail. We were setting quite a slow pace for Isabelle. Being her first ride and being only 8 months since she was first trained, we didn’t want to burn her out mentally. I know that she could physically handle the distance, but I also know that she would be more tired then she has ever been and would be feeling quite sorry for herself. All went well. The woods trail was a bit rough in the cart but Marie and I managed it. It was a lot of work for her pulling me through some deep mud. About 3 miles out from the hold, the riders started catching up to and passing us. When Susie and Cody came along, I knew I would have some trouble. I was right. Marie got all excited when she saw Cody and wanted to keep up with him. I was able to hold her back until Cody got out of sight. Unfortunately, on this part of the trail, we were going up to a water stop and then turning around and coming back the same way. Bonnie and I left the water stop ahead of Susie so she ended up passing us a second time. That was more then Marie could handle. She flipped out and bolted down the road after Cody. I pulled back and kept trying to calmly tell her to whoa. She did slow down but started hopping and bucking in the cart having a temper tantrum. There were a lot of riders on the road at this point going in both directions. Everyone was clearing off the road a fast as they could to get out of our way. Marie put on quite a show for everyone but we finally got things under control and managed to continue on our way. We got to the hold without any more trouble. Marie was very nervous at the hold. She knew all her buddies were there and she wanted to be with them. The trot out went fine. The vet admitted that Marie didn’t look a bit different and we were allowed to finish the ride. Isabelle’s P&R’s were fantastic. She was right down to resting rate within 10 minutes. We were held up a bit at the hold and got out 9 minutes over our time. They would have to add that back to our total ride time. The second loop went without incident. All the riders eventually passed us. I knew we would not make our time and would be disqualified. I didn’t care as long as everything went well for Bonnie and Isabelle. About half way around the second loop, Isabelle decided she had’d had enough and tried to quite on Bonnie. Bonnie handled it great. She patiently persisted in making Isabelle move forward and finally Isabelle realized she wasn’t going to get away with being lazy with Bonnie and was fine the rest of the way. We did end up finishing the ride about 10 minutes over the disqualification time. Even though we had disqualified, we requested a complimentary vetting so we could see how the horses scored. And I wanted the vet to see that Marie was fine. The vet admitted that she still looked just the same so couldn’t be lame after all. By the time we had finished the ride, the wind had picked up and was blowing real hard. It was causing some big dust devils to be whirling around. It made our outside supper a bit of a challenge to eat. Heather’s father set up his grill between two horse trailers to get some protection form the wind. He was cooking hot dogs and hamburgers. There was also salad. Once again we were grateful for the use of the indoor arena for the final vetting and then the awards. It gave us some relief from the wind. Susie got Reserve Champion of the ride!
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