Following the Vermont 100 and Sarge’s non-completion, I was quickly formulating an action plan. This is just what I do. Analytical to a fault.
Two 100 mile ride attempts with Sarge. One pull as a result of just plain bad luck. Second pull from an odd lameness that COULD be associated with the cruddy luck of the first pull (torqued shoe at 56 or so miles). NQR appetite with no significant change despite a course of Gastrogard. Loss of bounce in the trot.
This was a no brainer.
Sarge was going to see Dr. Ron Genovese at the Cleveland Equine Clinic.
Ace, who was sound as could be, was going also. He’d had some fill behind and below his left knee for several rides, not changing much, but combined with his calf-kneed conformation, I wanted an ultrasound of those front legs.
Ron is an amazing doctor. He’s 75-ish years old, sharp as a tack, amazingly physically fit (when he sits on this tiny stepstool 6 inches from the floor and does ultrasounds on lower legs with absolutely no discernible discomfort I am convinced he must practice a great deal of yoga during his downtime) and all he does all day long, in and out, for several decades now, is look at and diagnose lame horses, almost lame horses and horses whose owners are fretting they could be going lame.
As we drove the four hours to Doc’s new clinic, I made my predictions to Rich about what he would find. For Sarge, I imagined arthritic hocks and some changes in his right front sesamoid since he was initially x-rayed five years ago after two “iffy” BC trot outs. For Ace, I hoped and prayed for nothing. Just some anecdotal fill to watch out for during the years to come.
Boy, was I close.
Sarge had absolutely no changes in his RF x-ray and flexed sound on both front legs. Both hind legs were marginally off after flexion and Doc injected his hocks without x-raying them. “Why waste your money?” he asked. I worried over injecting him and keeping him going along if we should be slowing down, but Doc assured me this was the best thing to do for Sarge’s long term soundness and comfort.
Ace’s tendons were essentially normal, but the RF tendon was thickened more than the left despite more fill in the left front. Go figure. No real diagnosis but we called it a mild left front strain below the knee and the recommendations were for icing/cold hosing/bute after hard rides, to watch for deep footing, and shorten his toes when shoeing him/frequent resets (something we’d already been working on for quite some time).
Sarge finished out his stall rest and handwalking days mostly with grace and self control. His recovery was timed coincidentally with Rich’s clearance to ride following his hernia surgery. Apparently Sarge was feeling VERY good after his hock injections and gave Rich quite the ride and a near ejection when they made the turn on to the trail where we typically do galloping sets up a hill.
We elected to test Sarge by taking him to Maine for the multi-day ride with both Ned and Ace for company. Goal: Ride as much as possible, have a good time, laugh.
Goal accomplished. Sarge, two 30s with Rich, one 50 with Pam Karner. Ned, one 50 with Rachel, and one 30 with me. Ace, one 50 with me, one 30 with Pam. Much laughter. Good times.
What was most remarkable, however, was Sarge’s appetite. We didn’t have to lay out the Sarge Smorgasboard. At all. He ate like crazy. Whatever was placed in front of him. At every hold, all of the time. Ceaselessly. All I can figure is that his hocks were sore enough, and equally so, that when he’d been coming in to vet checks and ‘letting down’ he just felt uncomfortable enough to affect his appetite. Poor kid. If only we’d known …
You will note that I did not ride Sarge at all in Maine, so it was a couple of weeks after we got home that I got to tack him up to go for a spin. To say that he feels different after having his hocks done would be an understatement. Not only was his bounce back, but I noticed that he immediately settled into a big strided walk after I climbed on, where he had typically been doing a sort of jigging, shorter-strided walk while warming up pre-injection.
With him looking and feeling so great, and so very fit, Rich let me borrow him away for one more try at a 100. Seouls Corners in eastern Ontario, Labor Day weekend.
The 100 was not to be, unfortunately. A cold front coming in to our area slowed way down, meaning the weather would be beastly hot and ridiculously humid, so I opted to downgrade (or as Stan Alkemade said, “wuss out”) to the 75. I wasn’t heat conditioned, Sarge wasn’t heat conditioned, and I’d had a couple of hellishly difficult weeks with family health things the previous couple of weeks, and all I wanted to do was have fun and get around. The 100 wasn’t sounding fun and I was seriously concerned that with the heat we would not, in fact, get around.
My friend Nathalie and her husband, Jeff, who live near Ottawa, were coming to the ride with their 14 year old son, Yannick. Natty to crew for me, bless her. Jeff to run 50 miles in preparation for a 100 mile race he is running in two weeks, bless his crazy self. Yannick because his Mom thought it best for him to be chaperoned for the weekend, bless his teenaged self.
The ride consisted of three loops — one 19 mile loop, all of it repeated and a bonus five mile loop added for the next 25 mile loop, and a final 31 mile loop. The first two loops had significant chunks of rocky and technical trail. The final loop included 10 miles of that, but then the last 21 miles of the ride were on almost exclusively gravel road and the TransCanada railbed multi-use trail.
There were holds away and at camp and Nathalie crewed the hell out of us. Between doing so, she checked up on Jeff and left him little love notes here and there at camp for when he checked in to restock supplies (he was running the 25 mile loop twice, just like the 50 mile horses). I’m dealing with some heel spur/plantar fasciitis thing so it was a tremendous blessing to have someone trot Sarge out for me.
To say it was humid would be a wicked understatement. I was horrified to find there was a MIRROR in the porta-potty at the away hold and announced loudly when exiting that that was something I really did not to see, my uber tomato face when the humidex was outrageous. I don’t know what it was in Celsius but the translation from Canadian to American was something like “$(*&#( hot!”
There were only three in the 75, and I think three in the 100 as well, which was disappointing, I know, to the ride management. This is not an “easy” ride but it was a very doable and lovely ride, especially with the flat and easy final miles.
I “bonked” in the second half of the ride. Jeff and Natty (read more about them on my blog post from last year entitled something like “Now THESE people are crazy!”) invited their personal trainer friend, Bruce Hamelin, to join us at the ride for Jeff’s training run, and he was a lifesaver to me. At mile 67 he met me at the Sharbot Lake vet check and while Nat doted on Sarge, he sat me down and forced me to eat some uber-calorie, fiber and protein-filled cookie, explaining that I was running at a deficit and that was why I was feeling so lousy. I was hydrated, I was electrolyting, I just wasn’t taking in enough calories for my expenditure during the ride. It feels ridiculous to write about a calorie deficit when I am always struggling with or lamenting about losing weight, but there you go.
The last eight miles in the dark were, as always, magical. The trail had been glowsticked and I met John and Rob, the official GlowStickers on my way out of the hold, so knew the corners were marked on the way back to camp.
The TransCanada trail between Sharbot Lake and base camp travels primarily through what looked (dimly) and sounded like swamp territory. The critters I heard calling and splashing in to the water were remarkable and I can tell you that more than once I thanked the gods that I had chosen to ride the horse who rarely spooks. At anything.
He was starving (hallelujah!) and also anxious to get back to camp, so we alternated doing the big trot and stopping for what seemed endless periods of time to graze. As night riders know, the horses see fine despite our tragically limited human night vision, so Sarge would be flying along and then would suddenly spot a succulent patch of grass, screech to a halt and resume chow time. I knew he was metabolically fantastic, every single footfall all day and all night was perfectly even, and so I simply enjoyed the ride.
My favorite moment was as we passed, or rather tried to pass, an apple tree that we’d found the day prior just a bit off the marked trail on the way back to camp. When we got to that point, I tried to turn Sarge off the trail as the glowstick indicated and he simply stopped. I urged him on. He backed up a few steps, when I suddenly remembered EXACTLY where we were and I headed him off trail in the direction of the tree. He was grabbing apples from the branches as I was picking them to give to him. (I did threaten to kill him if he opted to choke on one.)
Did I mention how hungry he was??
As we approached camp at about 9 p.m., the skies opened. First a sprinkle, then a rain, then something that pretty well resembled a downpour. Sarge vetted through beautifully. It was wonderful to be vetted by Stan Alkemade as he is a dear friend and vetted our Shut Up and Ride for years, and he’s had a bitch of a year with health concerns; it was so nice just to be around him again. Sarge’s CRI was 12/12 and he was all As.
Since we were first to finish and I knew he looked dynamite, I deigned to take my tack over to weigh in. Due to my 80# saddle and my saddlepad soaked with rain water, I’m sure my ride weight was just a little heavier than what I know everyone anticipated was Lightweight status. I threatened bodily harm to any fool stupid enough to announce my weight aloud. Best Condition judging was to be at 8 a.m. the next morning and in order to present, you have to weigh in. (Damn it.)
Headed back to the trailer, shoved wet tack into it, made sure Sarge had a huge pile of hay and was covered with a rain sheet (thanks Nat!), promised to join my friends in their EZUp tent just as soon as I smelled better and immediately showered. I was force-fed (kindly) some awful liquid called Recoverite and cold pizza while we all laughed about the day’s events, Jeff’s successful training run, Bruce’s theories on sports nutrition, and just what a terrific day it had been.
And then I was suddenly exhausted. I took my entire 3 oz of celebratory Merlot and hit the sack, waking at midnight, thirsty as heck and hungry for Pringles, which I ate.
Nat presented Sarge for BC the next morning and I knew it was going to be good. We warmed him up and I showed her how he presents (this was not Sarge’s first time trotting for BC; he’s won several with my husband Richard) and he was looking fantastic. Stan was also very impressed.
Was sad to hear that Monica, who was in 2nd behind me in the ride pulled at Sharbot Lake. Like me, she was riding a Morgan/Arab (hers a stallion!) and while I was tickled to win, I was hoping all three of us starting would make it around.
So Sarge was the winner, BC, High Vet Score (780, which is absolutely nothing to sneeze at), Top Ten, and also Turtle. He won a load of loot and I’m not even sure I’ve gone through everything in the bag just yet.
Uneventful trip home, even with the international crossing and holiday traffic, and I was so physically and mentally exhausted that I was entirely distracted from everything other than riding that wonderful horse down that trail on that day and taking care of him as best I could. It was exactly the weekend that I needed.
It was hot, it was miserable, it was tough and I have sore bits as I sit and write this, but the jigsaw puzzle has totally taken shape, and I am so incredibly relieved that we have finally figured Sarge out. The last piece just fell into place; we simply needed to re-arrange a few things and look at them in a different way.
Life is good. On to planning for the Allegany SUAR on October 1st. Did you get your entry in yet?
And then, hopefully, God and sound horses willing, the Spook Run 100 in Indiana on October 28th. Which horse(s)? Well, we’ll just have to see.
Anyone care to join me?