Shine and Shine Only ride III, March 27, 1999
The rain in Northern California let up enough last weekend for one of Becky Hart’s SASO rides to take place. It has been yet another irritatingly wet season this year for us Northern California riders, but ride we must! The weather was as nice as it gets for riding, though. Cold in the morning, no wind, bright sunshine all day, cool throughout. Perfect!
This was a special ride for me since it turned out to be my first ever limited distance ride, and my first endurance ride on a mare. My Super-beast Shatta dinged himself a little at the 20 mule team 100 in February and was pulled at 35 miles for being a little off. He suffered a mild irritation to an old splint on his right front. He’s fine now and will be back at the Lake side Classic on the 10th. Gotta get him ready for Tevis again this year, since I was lucky enough to win an entry at the convention raffle. See there, Sam? I don’t even have to trailer all the way across the country to ride again. I’ll miss you and Cojur out there, though.
My conditioning partner and riding buddy Sally Abe decided to do the 25 as a warm up ride for Lake Side as well on her neat little gelding Ahkiba. Judy was not quite ready to ride Warpaint yet, so I went looking for a ride on the 25 since I had to be home early on Saturday afternoon. Mike Maul came to my rescue and provided me his freshly-transplanted-to-California mare Pecan. Poor Mike’s leg is still in braces and such after his injury a few weeks ago. The poor guy brings his own horse out from Texas and now can’t ride her! Linda Cowles has been working with Pecan to get her used to California- read that climbing hills! Not many in Texas.
The turnout was okay for a winter ride- there were 34 or so 50’s and 17 in the 25. Special welcome to Becky Hackworth who recently moved from southern California to our neck of the woods. Kathy Webster brought her “energetic” boy Fire Alaarm, better known as Alaarm Clock. This was their first ride of the season, as it was for Kathy Meyers and the infamous Blue horse Blue. Dom Freeman brought Jur Prize, Kirsten Berntsen had her blue-eyed, new horse who I can’t remember his name. He has a cool eye, though. This may have been their first 50. Linda Cowles rode Gavilin, except that I was supposed to, and she was going to ride Pecan, but we swapped back Saturday morning due to the swift and skillful rider change by Mary Ben. Mike was not too worried, though- he was doing the scoring!
It was a glorious morning as we walked over to the start. Yep, Pecan walked nicely for me with only a rope halter on her head. A good sign, no doubt. Mike said she was a good girl. We’ll see. Kathy and Alaarm Clock went by- he was a little more “energetic” than some of the others, but he certainly looked capable this morning. We started out with most of the riders and hit the wet trail. The footing was either absolutely perfect or sloppy. It wasn’t bad, but there were a lot of places you needed to slow down and walk through. We moved along at a good clip once we climbed up “cardiac” hill at the start. Poor Pecan- she climbed up just fine but I could tell she was not used to that type of effort. Shatta sort of powers up hills like a tractor. (ever see his leg muscles in back?) Pecan came into her own once we hit the flat and rolling roads to the first vet check at 13 miles. This horse has a NICE canter! She just lopes along, very comfortable and very calm. Zero spooking- I like that after riding my spook-a-matic. Ahkiba was sailing along at a fast trot as Pecan followed enthusiastically. I found I could control her just fine with a rope halter. I wouldn’t’ do that on my horse, but this little sweetheart was just fine. It was a quick ride to that first check. I felt like we were just getting warmed up and it was time to stop already.
Mike told me she recovered well- he got that right. Sally’s horse recovers well but Pecan beat Ahkiba by 3 minutes. She was very calm at the vet check and had very good scores. I told Mike that I finally found a mare that I would own. Judith looked at me and said “Heeyyyy!” We both passed the vet check without incident, except that I thought it was neat that P&R worker Lori Olsen noticed Ahkiba’s mild heart murmur that the vet missed. After almost running over Ruth Waltenspeil on our way out (she walked in front of us with some hay, but then laughed and told us we should just run over stupid people) we started out on our last leg. Last leg? Man, this was going fast. Heather left the check leading the 50 just before we did on Red- he looked great going up that hill. We boogied around the lake, climbed the hill, went down to the check, did the final 2 miles and were done. That didn’t take long. We finished in about two and a half ride hours. The ride wasn’t over until the horses pulse came down, which Pecan’s did immediately. We ended up in 5th and 6th place. Now what? Go back to camp and go home. We walked Ahkiba back to the camp, had lunch, let him eat, loaded up and left before noon. We forgot to pick up our bungee cords, though.
Results of the 50- Heather won, Mike Tracy second, Kathy W on AlAArm got 6th, Kathy Meyers got 12th, Kirsten B got 13th, Dom 16th, Linda C 17th, Becky H 18th. Fun ride on a fun horse, but over way to quick. Next time I’ll do a longer ride, Mike. Next stop- Lakeside!
Nick Warhol
Hayward, Ca.