Every cloud has a silver lining.
When life hands you lemons, you make lemonade.
Look on the bright side.
Statistically, our weekend at Pine Tree was a bit of a bust. Ned didn’t even start the 100; Sarge and I rider optioned at 65 miles.
So why did I find myself crying tears of gratitude as I hauled my boys out of the North Waterford Fairgounds facing a 12 hour haul home?
The endurance weekend began as they all do, loading horses and heading down the driveway, full of anticipation and a tinge of anxiety. Sarge and Ned jumped on the trailer just after dawn, covered with the mud they wore in from a rainy, stormy night spent turned out in the pasture; based on the forecast, there was plenty more mud to come and I wanted to beat the Buffalo morning rush hour to get to Vermont for the evening.
When I arrived at Gene and Dale’s mid-afternoon, I knew something was wrong the moment I opened the back door of the trailer and glanced at Ned’s legs. His left hind pastern was swollen. The mud had dried, revealing a cut on the front surface of his pastern about an inch up from the coronary band. Not good. Gene and I hosed it off, applied some antibacterial gel and waited for my friend Pam (who just so happens to be a veterinarian, a gift I exploit regularly) and Rachel, who was to ride Ned in the 100, and were also overnighting at the farm.
At first the wound seemed superficial, but Ned was off and ouchy about it. Ned is actually rather stoic, and sure enough, it turned out to be a pretty deep wound. Probably a result of a clinch during some scrambling in a stall (our boys can come and go from their box stalls when turned out) during a t-storm. Far from his heart, but there was no way he’d be doing the 100. As Gene said, it was a diabolical way for me to get crew! Rachel, now without a mount, was pressed in to the job of crewing for Sarge and me in the 100, and Pam and Prin in the 50.
As always, spending time with Gene and Dale on their farm was wonderful. We got to see the new foal, the foals that had become yearlings, a new stallion in for training, all the other horses, and had a terrific dinner out at a local steakhouse.
If only the weather was better. It rained and then drizzled, then poured and then misted. Miserable. It seems every time Pam, Rachel and I are in the same place this season, it rains. Sigh.
It was still raining when we arrived at the North Waterford Fairgrounds on Friday just before noon. Fortunately, we were able to get stalls for Ned, Sarge and Prin very close to the vetting area and our trailers and got everyone settled in. We joked about the low ceilings and how we were parked in the Goat Barn. It looked like Ned, at 16+ leggy hands, could easily step over the outside wall, but thankfully he didn’t.
In the just-when-everything-seems-to-be-going-fine category, I was shocked to discover water pouring in to my living quarters through my air conditioner shortly after we arrived. The aftermath of this incident involved much hilarity with middle-aged women and tarps and bungee cords and a broom and a call to my husband at home to ask stupid questions.
Okay, so my veteran horse was lame and could not start the ride. On the bright side, I had crew for the 100, he had his own personal vet to doctor him, and he’d be just fine in pretty short order.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, my trailer was leaking and my carpet was soaked. But hey, I had a bunch of throw rugs to use to soak up the water, our tarping job had slowed the leaking to an occasional drip, and my bed was completely dry. Not so awful.
Well sure, the weather sucked, but the horses were tucked away in nice dry stalls and it was going to be perfect half-Morgan riding weather. And according to Irving McNaughton, a lifelong Mainer and the original Boiled Owl, it was going to clear up as ride day went along.
Surely nothing ELSE could go wrong, right?
The start at 5 a.m. for the 100s was unremarkable. There were 13 of us and the crowd headed out at a sane pace. Sarge has grown up considerably and while he lengthened my arms a little bit, there was no plunging about or bucking, so I was pleased.
Within a few miles, we linked up with Char Jewell on Nickle, also going for his first one day 100. The boys paced nicely together, and we both wanted to ensure they were eating well, so we stopped frequently to insist they grab a bite of grass before moving along again. This loop had the notorious French Hill climb, and the 17.5 miles took us a healthy 2.5 hours, with us coming in just behind Claire Godwin and Courtney Walker, who went on to finish 2nd and 1st in the ride.
Sarge walked in, pulsed down and vetted through with all As. That was the easy part; getting him to eat well was what I knew would be the challenge. Turned out this hold was an apple wafer treat, sweet feed and oats hold. He would have nothing to do with grass, hay or his slushie.
[For a little tangent, I have a funny peeing story. Not unusual for a 100. Not unusual for me. This hold was at the McKenzie Farm, and with no visible portapotties, I went off in search of a private place to relieve my bladder. I went through the barn, found a tiny little corner behind the barn, looked both ways and did my business. As I looked up from the classic squatting position, I noticed a little wooden shack directly in front of me, tall, narrow, why it looked a lot like … Yes, you guessed it, I managed to seek out a place to pee and peed about six feet BEHIND a perfectly fine outhouse.]
Rachel was a wonderful crew, attentive and calm and reminding me quietly to sit down and eat and drink. She coaxed Sarge to eat and worried over him a bit as, like me, she has Kholee, who like Ned, has never met a feedstuff he didn’t like. I assured her that this was Sarge’s “normal” and set off on the 2nd loop.
This one had significant climbs as well, and we were passed by Steve Rojek and Kyle Gibbons, and we allowed them by, knowing we were keeping a smart pace for our horses.
In to the second hold at the same farm, where I enjoyed using the actual potty, and Sarge noshed on grass, and was delighted to find someone’s dropped carrot. It was a carrots-and-grass hold, and no other food was of interest, so I borrowed some carrots (thanks, Linda!) and Sarge munched for the duration of the vet check. He’d interfered on a hind fetlock so I added some boots and Char and I headed out to return to camp.
Rachel was waiting for us there, having just returned from the hold and crewing Prin and Pam, who were doing nicely in the 50, despite a pulled and replaced shoe. Phew!
It had stopped raining, and was actually brightening up a bit, so that was a plus.
Rachel had put out the most hilarious spread for Sarge — a smorgasboard of little buckets. One with sweet feed, one with oats, one with a sloppy slushie, one with carrots, another with apples, and finally, one with apple wafer treats. Sarge vetted through (all As again) and went in to his stall and did the most amazing thing. He put his head down and he ate. He moved from bucket to bucket and had a little bit of almost everything but he only stopped eating at the very end of the 40 minute hold, and then quietly stood and had a brief nap. At this point we were at roughly 45 miles, with a 22 mile sandy loop ahead of us.
Rachel set up quite the tapas spread for Sarge at Mile 45
Unfortunately, Char’s horse Nickle had a gait re-check, and since we’d pulsed in ahead of them, we were heading out as they were heading back up to the vet. I told her I’d wait and her Mom indicated she might rather ride alone, so Sarah Jack (who’d caught up to us at the end of the last loop and pulsed through with Sarge) headed out at a jiggy jog, unsure if we should wait or go.
Within a mile or so, Nickle came cantering up, with Char relieved that Art had seen nothing odd in his gait at the recheck. Hooray!
Char knows this trail intimately, so we knew exactly what was coming, and Nickle happily lead, trotting and cantering, slowing to a walk for the nasty sections of rock, and taking time for all three horses to graze when we found nice patches of grass.
Sarge discovered his “inner hungry horse” and just devoured every bit of grass that he could. We passed the crewing area, did a bit of spongeing and then headed along, finding another grassy patch shortly thereafter.
Mmmmm, apple wafer treats! Thanks, Auntie Rachel!
It was at that point, I suppose, that I sealed our fate. I looked up from Sarge’s frantically eating head at Sarah and Char and announced (like a total idiot, in retrospect) — “You know, even if we don’t get around, THIS makes this whole thing worthwhile. THIS was why we were doing a 100. To teach him to eat and take better care of himself.”
The fates, listening closely, took things into their own hands at this point. We left that grassy area, trotted and cantered along the sandy trail when, bam, Sarge stumbled just a bit, caught his hind toe on his outside front heel, and wham, bad step, bad step, bad step. I called out an expletive (of course), pulled him up, and Char said “he pulled a shoe.”
Oh, okay, no biggie. Unfortunately though, he hadn’t pulled the shoe, he’d just sprung it. The outside heel was torqued about 3/4 of an inch from the rear heel, but the inside nails were tight and clinched and there was absolutely no give when I grabbed the shoe. Zero.
Sizing up my situation within about ten seconds, I sent Char and Sarah along, “Go, go, go, this is NOT coming off. We’re going to walk in.” Char shouted some information to me about the upcoming trail and indicated it was shorter to head along the marked trail to the repeat crew spot than to turn around, and headed off. Shortly thereafter the rest of the pack came along, asking if they should stop to help, and I sent them on along, as there was really nothing anyone could do for me unless they happened to be carrying shoe pullers and a rasp.
I grabbed my Leatherman and half heartedly tried to work the shoe off, but I knew it was fruitless.
Sarge, surprisingly, handled all of this with a great deal of maturity. He’s a VERY competitive horse, but he seemed to realize he had a flat tire, and about 5 minutes after the pack exited stage left, he cheered up and walked along on a loose rein, grabbing grass and swishing flies and cheerfully walking the four or five miles back to the crewing area. He asked to trot a few times, but quietly aquiesced when I said no. No one at the crew area (I’d half-hoped someone would have sent someone back with tools, but knew that was a long shot) so we continued along the marked trail at a walk.
Within a half mile, I heard a vehicle up ahead. A truck and tagalong trailer, driving along the sand road to come get us. How sweet! I didn’t expect a TRAILER to come for us.
“You lost a shoe?” Kathy Brunjes’ brother asked.
“I wish! I torqued a shoe, and I have an easy boot, but this shoe is not coming off without some tools.”
He indicated he had tools and I turned and followed them back to the crewing area where they could safely park and we could work on Sarge.
Sure enough, a rasp and a shoe puller and a few grunts later, he had the shoe off and I had the easy boot on. Kathy’s mom, Janet, assured us that they “didn’t mind at all” coming out to help me and that we should “go and finish the ride.”
I got back on and we headed off, trotting and cantering for a couple of miles. However, I could feel something not quite right. Not that Sarge was uneven, but that he wasn’t striding out quite like normal. So I pulled him up, and once again, we walked. He was voracious, grabbing leaves and grass and anything that looked edible, actually stopping to eat and having to be prompted to continue to walk on. He would ask to jog, in the world’s loveliest western pleasure sort of way, but this is a big bounding road trot sort of horse, so I knew that this was not his normal.
I wondered then if the easy boot was rubbing him or otherwise bothering his foot, so after a couple more miles of walking and a few fruitless visual checks of the boot, I dismounted and pulled it off, knowing we had a sandy trail for his bare foot most of the way back to the Fairgrounds.
A couple of 50s passed us so I asked them to let everyone know that we were just fine and walking in, not wanting Rachel or Pam to worry.
And that’s just what we did. Walked back in. Sure enough, Sarge was off on the right front when we arrived back at camp, but I’d already decided we were done for the day. Sarge has a bit of sesamoiditis in his right front and there was no way I was going to test his resilience by asking him to go another 35 miles after he stumbled and spent 5 miles walking on a sprung shoes.
We did get the shoe reset immediately and Sarge re-presented during his hold time perfectly sound, but we rider optioned out anyway. Pam and Nick had a lively discussion about whether it was a RO/Lame or a just plain RO, and I inserted a colorful clarification of which was which that I will not share here as it was rather, errr, descriptive and not terribly technical. What I was most tickled about, other than the fact that Sarge was indeed sound, was that he was eating like a pig.
All of a slushie, then an entire bucket of carrots, then some sweet feed, which we finally took away from him, suggesting that hay was a better idea. Ned was tickled to have his friend back and displayed his joy by biting Sarge, grabbing his halter with his teeth and refusing to let go, and generally pestering the crap out of him. Sarge ate and ate and ate, and looked just grand.
We had front row seats in our little corner of the barn to everyone coming in to the vetting area, so I showered and we grabbed some food and cocktails and offered all sorts of delectable goodies to our fellow riders as they came in.
It was a very good group in the 100. Seasoned riders and horses, and Courtney and Pica finished in first well before dark. Claire came in, hmmm, roughly an hour later, followed by Steve and Kyle as darkness fell. In a heartbreaking turn, Kyle’s horse, who had looked so amazing all day long, was lame at the finish. All a part of the game, but just rotten. Hopefully nothing serious.
By this time, Pam and Rachel and I, joined by Ranelle Kohut (who’d gotten her thousand miles by finishing the 50 on Luke) and Doug Bejarano, were swapping tales and laughing and just generally being rather obnoxious. At some point during the weekend, when things weren’t going so well, Pam and I had looked at each other and queried, “Why do we DO this, anyway?” I looked at her at some point between all the laughing, and said, “Hey Pam, THIS is why we do this. This.”
When the rest of the pack all came in together after 10 p.m., we whooped and hollered and helped to cool/hold a couple and then watched them trot out. They all looked rather good and the riders looked relieved, and everyone got their completions.
Got all packed up in the a.m. with the help of Rachel and Pam, and heading out of the fairgrounds, I was worried about the long drive home and hoping I had all of the truck/trailer parts properly deployed for travel, I stopped to say thanks and goodbye. I needed to thank the Brunjes once again for their on-trail rescue, and Tom Hutchinson, who managed the ride, for just general reasons and for putting up the foot on my trailer because I was too mechanically retarded to do so on my own. I was feeling a wee bit anxious and a little defeated.
Steve Rojek inquired about Sarge, so I told him what happened. He looked at me, shook his head and smiled and said, “you’re just too good of a horseman.”
I am not a terribly good rider, I could be considered “challenged” when it comes to all matters mechanical, I have absolutely no killer instinct competitively.
But to be called a “horseman.” Well, that’s right up there with the nicest things anyone has ever said about me.
I’ll take it. (Thanks, Steve.)
And as I drove out of the Fairgrounds with Steve’s words replaying in my head, with the new truck dependably humming along, and Ned sporting a minor wound that would be healed in short order, and Sarge sound and having discovered the joy of a vigorous appetite, both ready shortly for another wack at a 100, I found myself getting choked up and teary.
Not tears of sadness or frustration, but tears of gratitude.
Even on a weekend that might look rotten on paper, there was a great deal about which to be thankful.
Happy trails.
–Patti