Let me preface this blog post by saying that I realize how wildly blessed I am to be faced with this dilemma!
It’s ten days out from the Pine Tree 100 endurance ride in North Waterford, Maine, and I am working hard at NOT trying to speculate as to which two of the three horses Rachel and I should take to ride.
I’m open for votes, but have decided that I will not make the final call (thank you, Tom Hutchinson, Ride Manager, for being kind and patient about horse changes) until this Saturday or until I can compare all three boys on equal footing, literally.
Here’s the details:
Ned, 17 this year, and a veteran of 7 100 mile rides, has come back into fitness like the slow, steady gifted athlete that he’s proven himself to be over 12 seasons of competition. He has blessed us with scattered moments of overt enthusisam, and has also shown Rachel, for the first time really, Pouty Ned. One must always tread lightly on Ned’s attitude and sizeable ego, and Rachel has a unique gift for cajoling the big boy into otherwise unexpected cheerfulness. I tease her that it’s because she’s a tiny little sprite of a person (comparatively, anyway — when I climb on Ned these days he looks back and says “one at a time please”) but I think it is more her appreciation for his cranky quirkiness and gruff exterior which indeed houses a generous and kind soul.
That said, Ned does not really owe me any more 100s in the heat. Heck, he doesn’t owe me any 100s at all. But the big guy proves over and over again that he is up to the task, albeit not at a blistering pace. And not in ridiculous heat and humidity. And not over a super-poundy or rocky course.
Ned gets to stay home if the forecast shows a Ned Unfavorable Forecast.
On to Ace.
Ace is 11 this year, and proved himself a 100 mile horse last July, handily finishing the Canadian National Championship 100 in 15-ish hours, accompanied by Ned, all As and piaffeing with nervous energy even at the finish. Physically, this sport is easy for Ace. We’ve got his feet balanced the best we have in years (an ongoing challenge), he can go faster, he can go slower, he eats and takes good metabolic care for himself despite the fact that he sometimes finds it absolutely impossible to simply be still.
Anxiety oozes from every pore of Ace unless he is moving. When he’s on the brink of meltdown he will suspend himself in space in an earnest effort to behave (Ace is nothing if not earnest) but trot in place, a move dressage folks call “piaffe.” The part that makes me giggle is that, a former dressage-only person, I’ve finally landed a horse with a gift for the movement, and it’s not even, technically, a good piaffe. (Heavy sigh.) When reprimanded to keep all four feet planted, the anxiety leaks out of his face, causing him to yaw his mouth and twist his head and neck around, eyes wide. (I have a gift for collecting the Special Needs Ones, I know.)
Despite Ace’s General Anxiety Disorder, he’s competed quite nicely. He manages to pulse down handily, even in the heat, while looking like he’s on the edge of a nervous breakdown, eats with nervous reckless abandon, frantically checking to see who is watching, coming, going.
The issue with Ace was that my hope was to save him for VT100 on July 16th, my absolute favorite 100, and just a wee bit too close to Pine Tree, time-wise, to make me comfortably plan on both with him. The good news is that, accompanied by Ned, Ace would do a slower-than-he’s capable 100 at Pine Tree, leaving him with plenty of gas in the tank at the finish and hopefully the capacity to go back out and compete three weeks later.
Sarge is the wild card in all of this. He’s my husband’s horse, a complete rock star of an Arab/Morgan – just ask him. He’s 13 this season and despite a bunch of Top Ten finishes and BCs with my husband in 50s, he’s never done a one-day 100. Last fall, Rich offered him to me for the VT 3 Day 100 CTR when Ace was suffering a series of abscess from a rocky ride, and he handily finished, proving to me that he’s ready for a one-day.
Sarge’s issue is that he’s just not seeming quite “right” to me this season. He had a vaccination reaction, then Rich pulled him from the Bare Bones 50 in VT in May at the halfway point because he had a cut that seemed to be bothering him, sore and with more underlying trauma than we realized when we took him to the ride. He got a bit colicky once more at home after that, prompting me to try the expensive experiment of a 28-day course of Gastrogard to see if perhaps ulcers were the root cause of some of this. He’s always been a fussy eater at rides and part of me hopes that doing a one day 100 will, in fact, make him a better eater on 50s.
Two weeks in to the Gastrogard, this is looking like it was an expensive way to find out that, no, Sarge does not have ulcers, as I’ve seen no great changes in Sarge, but his symptoms are so subtle that the actual 100 mile ride would probably be the test.
I also believe that Sarge’s hocks are getting a wee bit arthritic, necessitating a conservative ride (not Sarge’s favorite) where rather than doing his big, huge trot and over-taxing those hocks, I ask him to step under and straight and far less extravagantly. We’ve not made the move to inject the hocks, but that may be in Sarge’s future too.
Last weekend, Sarge decided to further muddy the waters by getting a nice laceration on the front surface of his hind cannon bone and then pulling his right front shoe, pad and all, and taking a nice chunk of hoof wall with it. Not shockingly, he seemed NQR behind on the day after our last conditioning ride. I’m waiting on a call from our busier-than-busy farrier to call in yet another favor and ask him to come out sooner than our Monday re-set appointment because Sarge refuses to keep an easyboot on as he gallops up and down the muddy lane to our pasture. (The good news is that it’s really not rocky or hard in the pasture, so hopefully no more damage to that hoof wall or a stone bruise.)
Sarge will go to Pine Tree only if he seems 100% right on when that shoe gets reset. Hocks and all.
The other twist in this equation is Rich. He agreed to let me steal Sarge away for this 100, and then recently discovered he has a hernia, necessitating (day) surgery and a 30 day no riding/no lifting recovery, which will mean that he will, if following his surgeon’s orders (always optional in Rich’s mind), miss the VT Moonlight 50 with Sarge, his favorite ride. Disappointing for both of us.
It also means that I will be abandoning Rich a couple of days out from his surgery, possibly packing up his horse and another and heading off for a 12 hour haul a few states away to ride 100 miles. For fun.
I’m the first to admit I’m a control freak. Having so many uncertain factors, so many balls being juggled in the air, makes me terribly uncomfortable. I have learned, finally, that I cannot control the weather. Despite checking the ten day forecast for a ride about fifteen days in advance. And praying.
So I am considering this another life lesson.
Wait for a call for the farrier.
Wait to see how Sarge looks.
Wait to see how the weather forecast is shaping up.
Wait to see how Rich comes through his surgery.
And then decide.
A life lesson in patience and making the best choice possible with a trio of animals who do not say outloud how they feel about my plans for them (although honestly Ned can be read like a book), and a husband who will say that he is fine, just fine, for me to leave, rather than tell me to stay home from a ride.
I’m blessed. I get it. Here’s to hoping that I get this one right …
Happy trails.
–Patti