This weekend, D and I drove up to Eagle, Idaho (just north and slightly east of Boise) for the Eagle Extreme ride. This was D and Sam's first ride together, and Bhen and I told them we'd ride with them to make sure they got thru everything okay. We needn't have worried. The guys did great!
MJ drove up with us to Idaho. She's just gotten clearance (as of Monday, today) to start riding again, but since her horses have been on vacation while her shoulder healed from surgery, she didn't have them in good enough condition to ride. (So we had one of the top 3 riders in our geographic division acting as crew for us; a little overkill, I suppose........ She's a good sport, though, and took very good care of the ponies during our vet-check break.)
We took the big, living quarter trailer her husband has as a demo from his trailer-sales business and lots of panels for the horses. Bhen had his own space at one end of the trailer.
Sam had slightly taller panels, since he's such a big boy, at the other end of the trailer.
Ride camp was in this lovely flat, sagebrushy area between two small ranges of hills. There were 4 loops for the ride (the 50-milers rode all 4, the 25-milers rode just 2 of the 4). They all came back into camp for the vet checks, which was nice, since the boys could come back to the trailer to have a snack and a bit of a rest before going back out again, and we didn't have to pack everything to take out to a midway point. The first loop was not very technical - most of it was flat 2-track sandy trails through a ranch. Our only dicey moment was at the start, where Sam got kind of revved up with all the horses and excitement, and we had to try to stay clear of an unhappy, kick-prone mare whose rider was trying very hard to get under control. Once we got on the trail, the boys trotted along nicely next to each other and kept each other company.
We had our break after the first loop and went back out onto the second part of the ride. I had actually ridden part of this trail before, when I went to try out Bhen, since the ranch where he lived was just over the next range of hills, so I recognized some of the terrain, knew when we'd need to slow down or where we could make time. With his huge walking stride, Sam was able to make up a lot of time on the hills. We could keep him at a walk and not tire him, but he was leaving folks trying to trot those hills in the dust. Our main goal for this ride was to finish and to have Sam come to the end of the ride still in good shape. This trail was more technical - creek crossings, more rocky areas, some cross-country (meaning no trail at all) areas, and had some somewhat sparse and/or confusing trail markings. We blasted out of a rocky creek crossing at one point, coming out of the trees up a steep hill and almost ran into a somewhat uncooperative cow and her bull suitor. Oops. A quiet and verrryyyy careful tiptoe away from the romantic pair was in order.
Nearing the end of the loop, we unfortunately missed a turnoff for the last few miles of the loop, and headed back into camp incorrectly. The ride manager stopped us, explained where we needed to catch the other part of the loop and sent us back out. I was worried Sam would be overly tired, but apparently he just got his second wind, because he powered back up to the top of the ridge line, we found the trail and headed out to finish up the loop.
Even though we wound up adding 3, or maybe 4 extra miles, D and Sam still came in 10th. Not bad at all for their first ride.
We all got commemorative water bottles for completing the ride, and D and I got a set of polo wraps, since we were had driven the farthest to attend the ride. We got to hang out a little with Bhen's previous mom, Sally, and see her new horses, and then crashed for the night. No problems sleeping at all!
We packed up the boys on Sunday a.m. and were home by midafternoon on Sunday for a little R&R. Digger was happy to see everyone and the boys have all been having back-to-back snoozes in the sun here today.
Bhen's looking forward to his next ride in June, up in the mountains of Utah tho!
All for now....
