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Sep. 19th, 2010 09:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI went to the competitive ride on Saturday. I didn't chat this up as much as I did in 2007 because I was busting my tail on conditioning in 2007. It was the first time I was doing it for real and actually *trying* to win and so forth. It was interesting and there were problems to solve and stuff. This year, I did somewhat less conditioning and did not particularly expect to win anything. Also, I figured it would not be very interesting for all ya'll to hear about me riding my horse when the entries would be very much like one another. This year, I conditioned across the road, going up and down the hollow beyond the pear tree, over and over. I did walk and trot, mostly walking up the hills and trotting on the flat, about an hour of that for three nights a week all summer long. (If you want to know what the days were like, you can read the last sentence over and over until you get tired of reading it. It'd help if you could make it ninety degrees while you read, too.) Rather than bore you with repetitive details, I got on with it quietly.
When possible, I took Heather (the sponsoring kid -- grown-ups are not allowed to play this game unless they bring a 4-H member along because this is a 4-H ride and they want 4-H kids to participate) out on Callie, whom I broke to ride in 2008. Callie's job was to be kid-broke at the end of the summer's experience. Heather's job was to complete the 30 miles without letting Callie bloody her heels. (Callie and I rode noncompetitive "sweep" in 2008, did fifteen miles with clean heels, so this was a possible outcome. I do not set children impossible tasks.)
I did not feel that Nick and I were as conditioned this year as we were in 2007. I did not feel that Callie and Heather (a kid in La's 4-H club) were as conditioned as they might have been in a perfect world. *sigh* The world that we live in is manifestly imperfect, however, and I am trying to accept that. Anyway. We went to the ride.
Also attending were Trysta on Mariah, Waylon (Theron's son) on Eikon, La on Cuervo, and Cass (Theron's daughter) on Thyme. Tasha (Ned Brubaker's daughter) took Country, an emergency substitution for Doc, who was head-bobbing lame when she went to load him on the trailer for the ride. Marybeth (McCloskey) rode, but I forget who. Brittany (Kim Truax's daughter) took Silly, Stacey (Spring Truax's daughter) took Aurora, Ayrian (Julie Truax's daughter) took Crystals. Vic (Christine Truax's daughter) took Will o Wisp. Spring rode sweep as did Gillian and Katie. (Most readers are not expected to know these people. My mother, however, will be able to place some of them.) The ride overall had about thirty-five competing entries. Six of the competitors rode up on our trailer. Six. We entered three categories: Junior Pony (Waylon, Cass, and Heather were all "Junior Pony"), Lightweight Adult (Trysta) and Heavyweight Adult (Me and La). This is important information. File it for later.
Everyone vetted in and we camped for the night. I hate the camping part of this experience, by the way. I *do* it, but I am not a camper. For me, camping is a necessary evil in the world of competitive trail riding... kind of like al fresco I have to pee experiences along the trail. I was not cold overnight -- two heavy wool blankets plus three layers of clothes is, apparently, what it takes to keep me warm at night. I slept about four hours.
Got up way early, fed horses, held same on grass. Tacked horses up, got dressed. Started. We were planning a slow and fairly sedate approach to this ride because we had several novice riders (Heather and Waylon) and horses (Thyme, Cuervo, Eikon, Mariah) who had not done the competitive ride before. The staggered start meant that our earlier riders (La and Cass) had to wait for the rest of us, spilling some time (about five minutes) while the rest of us caught up to them. We had 5 hours and 22 minutes to complete the ride of 27.7 miles. "Midpoint" check was at mile 12, not quite halfway through the ride.
The first mile was up a mountain. Nick jigged the whole damn way. I could not get her to walk for love or money. She was like We camped out overnight. You fed me grain at five-freaking AM. You braided my mane. You are wearing a green pinnie. Damn it, I KNOW what this thing is. WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE TROTTING!!! and she would have none of the walking. *sigh* So, we jigged. Second mile of the ride, she decided it would be OK to walk and there were no problems on that front after that. We pulled into midpoint at 2:30, so we were doing about 4.8 miles per hour for the first twelve miles. That's not fast enough. There's a mandatory hold at midpoint, twenty minutes, that counts against your ride time but during which you are NOT ALLOWED to ride. So, you really have five hours (and two minutes) to go 27.7 miles. Call it 5.54 miles per hour as the ideal pace for the thing. That's what they expect you to be doing. We were not making the ideal pace, not even close.
Midpoint criteria was 60/40 (pulse/respiration) and Nick was 42/30, so she was well within range. I had a banana and slugged a bottle of ambient-temperature water (I can't drink it fast if it's cold) at midpoint. Nick didn't drink shit, but she never does. Everybody in our group passed midpoint vet check without issue and we all proceeded outward without a problem. We were way, way behind the entire rest of the ride except for two other horses with whom we leapfrogged position and the two riders who were pulled at the mile 6 water stop for walking the entire way without trotting, 45 minutes off the pace. Out of midpoint, we went up a Big Bark of a Mountain, going up from 1000 ft to 2280 ft over about two and a half miles. We walked most of that, trotting only the semi-level portions. At the top of the mountain, we started to trot downhill. We trotted downhill for four miles, losing an easyboot (Cuervo's left front) once and stopping to pee (Heather) once. We had to stop for the easyboot (fifty bucks a pop if you lose 'em) and for the peeing, but other than that we trotted. Downhill. Trotting downhill isn't fun even on an easy-gaited horse. Nick is *not* an easy-gaited horse.
At mile 20, Waylon had had enough. He was done in by all the downhill trotting and stirrups that could not go shorter because they had no higher holes and we had no hole punch. (Until a body does four miles of downhill trotting, it does not know that shorter stirrups are indicated.) He did a good job making twenty miles and we sent him back to camp in his parent's car. We ponied Eikon alongside, unsaddled and riderless, after that until mile 25 or so, when Spring showed up to ride Eikon bareback the rest of the way.
We passed mile marker 20 at 12:37 Real Time. I was looking at my cell phone and freaking out about the time and I remember it well. Because of the staggered start, our first person started at 0:08 Ride Time so we needed to be done by 5:30 Ride Time (1:30 Real Time). At that point, we'd used 4 hours and 29 minutes of *our* 5 hours and 22 minutes of ride time. We had 53 minutes left and 7.7 miles to go.
Damn it all.
At this juncture, I would like to state for the record that we did not receive ANY (justified) time penalty for our horses and EVERY horse made the pulse and respiration criteria for vet-out. :) Also, EVERY horse we took trotted sound at the finish (including Eikon who was not officially vetted out b/c Waylie took Rider Option). We completed the last 7.7 miles at Ride Time 5:24. (We actually had six minutes remaining on our time clock.) That is a pace of 9.83 miles per hour. We were FLYING down the road for the last seven and a half miles. I do not train at that pace. None of our horses train at that pace.
My horse, who is built funny, trots like an eggbeater, and generally is not a world-class horse, pulsed in at 40/12 for a finish criteria of 60/40. Like, you would not lose any points if your heart rate was 60. Mine was 40. You would not lose points if your respiration was 40. Mine was 12. (Lower, obviously, is better even though you don't get more points for that.) I ran the living hell out of my horse for seven fucking miles and made criteria. Easily. Well. Apparently I'd conditioned more than I thought I had. :)
How'd we do?
First place, Junior Rider on Pony: Cass on Thyme (score of 97.75)
High point Junior Rider: Cass on Thyme
I would like to point out that Cass did all her own conditioning. This is the kid who threw away the ride in 2007 on Casper and then won her division in 2008 with the same (still extremely fit) pony. She now wants to finish the ride on Thyme with a score of 100 next year.
Third place Junior Rider on Pony: Heather on Callie. (She beat at least three other people -- they only do ribbons to six places and there were six ribbons handed out. I don't remember her score, though.)
Waylie Rider Optioned at mile 20, did not finish. He'll do better next year.
First place, Lightweight Adult: Trys on Mariah (score of 99)
High point Adult: Trys on Mariah
First place, Heavyweight Adult: Me on Nick (score of 97.75)
Fourth(?) place, Heavyweight Adult: La on Cuervo (score 86 or something, but they incorrectly had Cuervo as a "horse" when she is officially a "pony." Ponies get more time. Therefore the nine points of time penalty she got were not actually justified. We feel Cuervo got a 95, which was her score minus the time penalty. We do not know where she would have placed and we do not care. A 95 is quite good.)
For comparison, when I won high point adult in 2007, I had a score of 94. I lost points for not making pulse/respiration criteria that day. I also lost half a point for a "slightly tender" back. (I saved the notes from back then -- they give them to you to take home.)
In summary, our group entered three divisions and won all three divisions that we entered. Our group also won all of the high point awards that we were eligible for. :) Next year, Cass will be a senior rider. Next year, we can take four divisions and three high-point trophies...
The thing is that I would really like more people to enter this ride. (So that I can beat them.) It's an excellent ride, well organized, friendly, and fun. It gets kids in saddles, which is (to me) one of the more salient goals of the 4-H horse program. It encourages better horsemanship in a way that fifteen minute classes in a show ring simply cannot do. The fact that they can only get 35 entries but have slots for 50 is a shame. You do not need (much) money to do competitive trail. Our truck is elderly and cranky. Our trailer is old and rusty. Our horses are not professionally-trained or particularly expensive. Our tack is serviceable but worn and much of it was purchased secondhand. It does not take money to win at competitive trail. It takes time. The way to win at competitive trail is to put your butt in the saddle and ride your damn horse. A lot.
When possible, I took Heather (the sponsoring kid -- grown-ups are not allowed to play this game unless they bring a 4-H member along because this is a 4-H ride and they want 4-H kids to participate) out on Callie, whom I broke to ride in 2008. Callie's job was to be kid-broke at the end of the summer's experience. Heather's job was to complete the 30 miles without letting Callie bloody her heels. (Callie and I rode noncompetitive "sweep" in 2008, did fifteen miles with clean heels, so this was a possible outcome. I do not set children impossible tasks.)
I did not feel that Nick and I were as conditioned this year as we were in 2007. I did not feel that Callie and Heather (a kid in La's 4-H club) were as conditioned as they might have been in a perfect world. *sigh* The world that we live in is manifestly imperfect, however, and I am trying to accept that. Anyway. We went to the ride.
Also attending were Trysta on Mariah, Waylon (Theron's son) on Eikon, La on Cuervo, and Cass (Theron's daughter) on Thyme. Tasha (Ned Brubaker's daughter) took Country, an emergency substitution for Doc, who was head-bobbing lame when she went to load him on the trailer for the ride. Marybeth (McCloskey) rode, but I forget who. Brittany (Kim Truax's daughter) took Silly, Stacey (Spring Truax's daughter) took Aurora, Ayrian (Julie Truax's daughter) took Crystals. Vic (Christine Truax's daughter) took Will o Wisp. Spring rode sweep as did Gillian and Katie. (Most readers are not expected to know these people. My mother, however, will be able to place some of them.) The ride overall had about thirty-five competing entries. Six of the competitors rode up on our trailer. Six. We entered three categories: Junior Pony (Waylon, Cass, and Heather were all "Junior Pony"), Lightweight Adult (Trysta) and Heavyweight Adult (Me and La). This is important information. File it for later.
Everyone vetted in and we camped for the night. I hate the camping part of this experience, by the way. I *do* it, but I am not a camper. For me, camping is a necessary evil in the world of competitive trail riding... kind of like al fresco I have to pee experiences along the trail. I was not cold overnight -- two heavy wool blankets plus three layers of clothes is, apparently, what it takes to keep me warm at night. I slept about four hours.
Got up way early, fed horses, held same on grass. Tacked horses up, got dressed. Started. We were planning a slow and fairly sedate approach to this ride because we had several novice riders (Heather and Waylon) and horses (Thyme, Cuervo, Eikon, Mariah) who had not done the competitive ride before. The staggered start meant that our earlier riders (La and Cass) had to wait for the rest of us, spilling some time (about five minutes) while the rest of us caught up to them. We had 5 hours and 22 minutes to complete the ride of 27.7 miles. "Midpoint" check was at mile 12, not quite halfway through the ride.
The first mile was up a mountain. Nick jigged the whole damn way. I could not get her to walk for love or money. She was like We camped out overnight. You fed me grain at five-freaking AM. You braided my mane. You are wearing a green pinnie. Damn it, I KNOW what this thing is. WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE TROTTING!!! and she would have none of the walking. *sigh* So, we jigged. Second mile of the ride, she decided it would be OK to walk and there were no problems on that front after that. We pulled into midpoint at 2:30, so we were doing about 4.8 miles per hour for the first twelve miles. That's not fast enough. There's a mandatory hold at midpoint, twenty minutes, that counts against your ride time but during which you are NOT ALLOWED to ride. So, you really have five hours (and two minutes) to go 27.7 miles. Call it 5.54 miles per hour as the ideal pace for the thing. That's what they expect you to be doing. We were not making the ideal pace, not even close.
Midpoint criteria was 60/40 (pulse/respiration) and Nick was 42/30, so she was well within range. I had a banana and slugged a bottle of ambient-temperature water (I can't drink it fast if it's cold) at midpoint. Nick didn't drink shit, but she never does. Everybody in our group passed midpoint vet check without issue and we all proceeded outward without a problem. We were way, way behind the entire rest of the ride except for two other horses with whom we leapfrogged position and the two riders who were pulled at the mile 6 water stop for walking the entire way without trotting, 45 minutes off the pace. Out of midpoint, we went up a Big Bark of a Mountain, going up from 1000 ft to 2280 ft over about two and a half miles. We walked most of that, trotting only the semi-level portions. At the top of the mountain, we started to trot downhill. We trotted downhill for four miles, losing an easyboot (Cuervo's left front) once and stopping to pee (Heather) once. We had to stop for the easyboot (fifty bucks a pop if you lose 'em) and for the peeing, but other than that we trotted. Downhill. Trotting downhill isn't fun even on an easy-gaited horse. Nick is *not* an easy-gaited horse.
At mile 20, Waylon had had enough. He was done in by all the downhill trotting and stirrups that could not go shorter because they had no higher holes and we had no hole punch. (Until a body does four miles of downhill trotting, it does not know that shorter stirrups are indicated.) He did a good job making twenty miles and we sent him back to camp in his parent's car. We ponied Eikon alongside, unsaddled and riderless, after that until mile 25 or so, when Spring showed up to ride Eikon bareback the rest of the way.
We passed mile marker 20 at 12:37 Real Time. I was looking at my cell phone and freaking out about the time and I remember it well. Because of the staggered start, our first person started at 0:08 Ride Time so we needed to be done by 5:30 Ride Time (1:30 Real Time). At that point, we'd used 4 hours and 29 minutes of *our* 5 hours and 22 minutes of ride time. We had 53 minutes left and 7.7 miles to go.
Damn it all.
At this juncture, I would like to state for the record that we did not receive ANY (justified) time penalty for our horses and EVERY horse made the pulse and respiration criteria for vet-out. :) Also, EVERY horse we took trotted sound at the finish (including Eikon who was not officially vetted out b/c Waylie took Rider Option). We completed the last 7.7 miles at Ride Time 5:24. (We actually had six minutes remaining on our time clock.) That is a pace of 9.83 miles per hour. We were FLYING down the road for the last seven and a half miles. I do not train at that pace. None of our horses train at that pace.
My horse, who is built funny, trots like an eggbeater, and generally is not a world-class horse, pulsed in at 40/12 for a finish criteria of 60/40. Like, you would not lose any points if your heart rate was 60. Mine was 40. You would not lose points if your respiration was 40. Mine was 12. (Lower, obviously, is better even though you don't get more points for that.) I ran the living hell out of my horse for seven fucking miles and made criteria. Easily. Well. Apparently I'd conditioned more than I thought I had. :)
How'd we do?
First place, Junior Rider on Pony: Cass on Thyme (score of 97.75)
High point Junior Rider: Cass on Thyme
I would like to point out that Cass did all her own conditioning. This is the kid who threw away the ride in 2007 on Casper and then won her division in 2008 with the same (still extremely fit) pony. She now wants to finish the ride on Thyme with a score of 100 next year.
Third place Junior Rider on Pony: Heather on Callie. (She beat at least three other people -- they only do ribbons to six places and there were six ribbons handed out. I don't remember her score, though.)
Waylie Rider Optioned at mile 20, did not finish. He'll do better next year.
First place, Lightweight Adult: Trys on Mariah (score of 99)
High point Adult: Trys on Mariah
First place, Heavyweight Adult: Me on Nick (score of 97.75)
Fourth(?) place, Heavyweight Adult: La on Cuervo (score 86 or something, but they incorrectly had Cuervo as a "horse" when she is officially a "pony." Ponies get more time. Therefore the nine points of time penalty she got were not actually justified. We feel Cuervo got a 95, which was her score minus the time penalty. We do not know where she would have placed and we do not care. A 95 is quite good.)
For comparison, when I won high point adult in 2007, I had a score of 94. I lost points for not making pulse/respiration criteria that day. I also lost half a point for a "slightly tender" back. (I saved the notes from back then -- they give them to you to take home.)
In summary, our group entered three divisions and won all three divisions that we entered. Our group also won all of the high point awards that we were eligible for. :) Next year, Cass will be a senior rider. Next year, we can take four divisions and three high-point trophies...
The thing is that I would really like more people to enter this ride. (So that I can beat them.) It's an excellent ride, well organized, friendly, and fun. It gets kids in saddles, which is (to me) one of the more salient goals of the 4-H horse program. It encourages better horsemanship in a way that fifteen minute classes in a show ring simply cannot do. The fact that they can only get 35 entries but have slots for 50 is a shame. You do not need (much) money to do competitive trail. Our truck is elderly and cranky. Our trailer is old and rusty. Our horses are not professionally-trained or particularly expensive. Our tack is serviceable but worn and much of it was purchased secondhand. It does not take money to win at competitive trail. It takes time. The way to win at competitive trail is to put your butt in the saddle and ride your damn horse. A lot.
