Pictures From the Big Ride

These are a few shots from Saturday. For an explanation see the previous post.

The Long Riders

The morning after the funeral I realized that I needed a big project to plan so that that planning could provide a distraction from the pain of simply being awake. My first mention of my project did not go well. The first rider that I told about my plans for a 100 mile ride promptly told me that she would not commit to it.

Since then, many of my riders and parents have been firmly committed to this project. We conditioned horses throughout the spring and summer. Initially I had planned to spread the 100 miles out over three days but as my riders and their horses became conditioned, I realized that that would not be a challenge. I decided to do 50 miles on Saturday and 50 on Sunday. We chose the last weekend in September for the challenge.

My pastures are surrounded by miles of woods and swamp. Trails, some new, some hundreds of years old lace through the woods. In order to prevent errors from estimating the distances I acquired a GPS.

Saturday we did fifty miles. It has been a very wet week around here and Saturday night we had another deluge. On Sunday morning we rode in light rain and the horses plodded through mud and muck for long sections of the trails. After eight of us completed 25 miles on Sunday I ended the ride. The horses all could have easily done 25 more miles but the rain and wet saddles exacerbated saddle sores and began to threaten what I hoped would be a positive memory for my little riders.

Saturday we started out with 16 riders. Eight of them knew from the beginning that they would not be out for the Sunday ride as a result primarily of church commitments.

Seventy five miles, one purely domestic horse, many 1/2 Chincoteagues,a Shackleford, four or five Corollas with the rest being BLM mustangs. The youngest rider was nine years old and the oldest rider was older than I am.

Sunday afternoon I think some of my riders mistook my exhaustion for disappointment and kept trying to cheer me up because we only did 75 miles instead of the one hundred that I had planned for. I was not disappointed.

Kids, formerly wild horses, several stallions, riders that a very short while ago were complete novices--75 miles.

But who am I too brag? I am sure that any educated horseman from the established horse world would have done a much better job with this project! After all, Milburn Drysdale was so much smarter than Jed Clampett.

Fair Thee Well My Boy

We spent four days last week at the Isle of Wight Fair demonstrating how we tame and train the Corollas. The fair was well attended, over 20,000 visitors. My riders were great in the demonstrations. Emily Marble, Jacob, and Wendy rode Red Feather for the crowd. Best of all, Wendy stayed on when he began to buck and softly brought him down.

Most importantly, at this fair Red Feather learned to be comfortable with something touching his back legs. This was a huge step for this horse who could never be tamed.

Forget Milk, Got Guts?

KC does. He has only been riding for about two months but from the first day he worked to overcome his natural fears in order to become a natural horseman.

Saturday he will ride a formerly wild horse on a fifty mile ride. I have not decided which one he will be riding yet, but Manteo, featured above, may have the day open.

Lab Results Are In

As indicated in the previous post, Holland and I did an experiment Friday. We set out to see what we were made of.

Holland was absolutely impeccable. He carried 220 lbs forty miles with about 35-38 of those miles at a trot and averaged 5.5 mph. I have no idea how many more miles he could have done. Yesterday I rode him ten miles and he was as fresh as a daisy. He opened up into a 9 mph trot any time I asked him.

I, on the other hand, was peccable. I was working through the saddle sores pretty well when at mile 40 I simply hit the wall. I believe that it was entirely the result of not following through with my nutritional plan. I purchased two large Domino's combination pizza's and only ate one of them.

In all I rode 72 miles this weekend. Now I know that that is not much for you young endurance athletes, but for an aged,arthritic, over weight man who has only a few more teeth than the average rooster, I thought that it was pretty good.

(This is a picture of Holland the first time that I met him).