It’s a long one, ladies and gentlemen. All photos by Rachel Lodder.
Rarely does one get through a 100 without some bit of misadventure, but we had more than our fair share at the Canadian National Championship 100. All in all, we still had a magical time!
Rachel and I headed out Wednesday at about 5:30 a.m. in an effort to avoid any bridge traffic and allow time for the boys to settle in after our 4 hour haul.
As we pulled out of the driveway, I high-fived Rachel and said “we are going to have an adventure!”
Damn straight. And then some.
At the border, I got out of the truck, health papers in hand (I think the health papers had bad juju, but more on that later), and slammed my middle finger in the door. Ow. (It is possible I cursed.) Bleeding and shaking my hand vigorously, I got the health papers signed, while Rachel got me a bag of ice. Half of my fingernail turned a deep shade of purple. There goes the manicure!
Really though, what right-handed endurance rider really uses their right hand fingers for anything more than gesturing the competition anyway? It throbbed delightfully for the rest of the trip and well into the night, but that was it. I have to say that it didn’t bother me in the least during the ride, although I worried mightily that it would.
In a bit of good luck, we arrived at the ride camp at precisely the right moment to be parked by Joe Mezenberg in the last camping spot immediately adjacent to the vet check. We also arrived right at the start of the opening ceremonies for the Canadian National competition and sort of got to be a part of the parade. <insert look of chagrin>
More good luck in the form of an unseasonably cool forecast, with a high of 70 expected and a low in the low 50s (it actually got down to 44 degrees).
Last but not least, we had the good fortune to have my friend Janet, a Canadian dressage rider and instructor, volunteer to crew for us. She turned out to be absolutely invaluable, packing her Kia full of all the necessities and lots of luxuries for the away holds, greeting us with a smile and slushies, holding horses and running vet cards hither and thither.
The ride briefing was a mix of information for both the FEI and open riders. It is always a bit of a juxtaposition to be a competitor at a Canadian FEI endurance ride, largely because the Canadians tend to be laid back and casual, and for that reason, FEI is a strange bedfellow. So the nonchalant charm and friendly openness of Canada with some added militant FEI rules and hoopla that inevitably affects all the competitors, including those who are not riding FEI.
The 100 mile ride consisted of a 40 mile loop (with a 16.5, 12.5, and 11 mile leg within) with two away holds (at different spots), back to camp, and then two repeat 17.5 mile loops, and two repeat 12.5 mile loops over much of the same trail.
I’d ridden the first 40 mile loop, as had Rachel, in previous rides from this location, and we were looking forward to doing it again. Gorgeous vistas and wooded trails and riding along the edge of farm fields, some ups and downs, but nothing terribly technical or challenging. We counted on the second part of the ride to be flat and easy, but a little boring and perhaps a bit sandy.
Rachel and I found ourselves rushing a bit to tack up in the morning. Ace was amped (per usual); Ned was unimpressed. Janet came out just in time to help us with the last minute chores of tightening girths, and mounting up, then waved us off after first noting that she saw her first horse warming up “not inverted.” Ah, these dressage queens!
We headed out on course with the boys, no doubt, at least a little inverted.
After a mile or two, Rachel and I found a nice little niche of space for the boys where we weren’t crowding the riders in front of us, nor being crowded from behind. Last year, at this same ride, in his first attempt at a 100, Ace was way too wound up, way too racy, and so this was perfect. He trotted along in a nice balance with very little fussing, and Ned looked very much on his game.
It’s funny, I don’t think of 16+H Ned as being “big” when I ride him (unless I am about to fall, or just recently fell, off of him), but watching him go along from 15.1H Ace, he seemed big and strong and mighty. One of the best parts of the ride was simply admiring how effortlesslyhe handled everything all day long. Boinging along with an air of supreme confidence. I’d told Rachel this was how he would be, but it took seeing him actually do it to make me believe my own tale.
In to the first hold at 16.5 miles at the rear of the pack (as expected). Janet waved us over immediately, and we managed to wind our way through the crowd amongst still-edgy and fresh horses to our crew spot. Both boys’ pulses were down without a single sponge of water, so we stripped their tack and took them to be vetted.
As it was all day long, the boys vetted in with 44s or 48s or 52s, with all As, or close to it, on their vet cards. In fact, I think there was only one 60 on one vet card from a single vet check. (The pulse parameter was 64.) It was our goal to ride the horses well within their abilities and have plenty of horse at the end of the ride. We also hoped to be done by midnight.
We kept gushing to Janet about how spoiled we were as we ate our chilled fruit and she cleaned off the boys’ interference boots and held them while we hit the potty. She pointed to her little Kia parked between two massive dually trucks and we all had a good laugh about the advantages of crewing out of a subcompact car.
Out for the 12.5 miles to the next away hold. This section of trail was just lovely, riding into and out of farms, through the woods, along fields and through a river. The front-running FEI riders had extended their lead and so it was a little less hectic at this hold, and again, the boys were all As and happy to eat.
It was clear here just how different my two boys are. Ned came back from vetting, got to immediate work on his slushie, ate his and then reached over to work on Ace’s. Ace ate his own slushie, then flung his head (and slushie) around, saw and stared at the horses in a pasture beside the hold area, grabbed some grass then turned back and sprinkled hay all over us. Ned is a very focused eater, Ace is more ADHD.
We discovered Ace had interfered on a hind fetlock so we added a pair of boots to his wardrobe, and he trotted out of the hold like a Hackney Pony.
Eleven miles back to camp, and I kept warning Rachel about the upcoming twisty and wooded section of trail on this loop, as I’d ridden it the previous year and been happy to be on handy little Ace rather than tall and lanky Ned. It turned out that Ned navigated the section of trail brilliantly, bending left and right and left and shifting back beautifully to avoid crushing Rachel’s knees. I told her I wanted to ride behind her “for entertainment purposes” but it was dreadfully uneventful.
Here we met up with “Dually” — a Namibian endurance rider on one of Darolyn Butler’s horses — and rode with her for much of the next 30 or so miles. She was on a tiny little Arabian mare, so it was a bit of a sight to see big Ned and the little mare going down the trail together. The little mare cantered most of the time to keep up with the boys. Dually delighted us with tales of past endurance adventures and her parents’ ranch in Namibia. Rachel has spent a good deal of time in Africa and so the two had all sorts of interests and travels in common.
Back to camp where we found Janet settled in back at the trailer at our perfect little spot. We crewed the boys right at the trailer and it was so handy to run in to grab something out of the fridge or the trailer’s tack room. Forty miles down and here the vets really gave us a good ribbing about the horses’ pulse rates.
“Is he alive?” Ann Stuart, DVM, asked me.
“Are you even riding him?” Ned’s vet asked Rachel.
I changed Ace from his dressage saddle (which I love) to the treeless saddle (which he loves, and in which I ride like the equitational equivalent of a troll) simply to make sure he stayed comfortable all day.
I ate and drank a little differently on this ride, having “bonked” a bit on my previous ride on Ned.
While heat was not an issue here, I really tried to focus on my water consumption and completely eliminated the Gatorade (which I think irritates my stomach). I ate a lot more fruit (which was so incredibly freshing — cut up melon and pineapple and grapes) and carbs (crackers and such), and less protein (cheese and nuts). I also discovered a really tasty and easy to get down yogurt drink from Stonyfied that I will definitely use again. I did use sugar-free electrolyte tabs in my drinking water from time to time to ensure I was covering my ‘lyte needs. (I also ate some of Ace’s Lyte Nows accidentally pretty much every time I used my teeth to uncap his syringe on trail. It made me much more zealous about rinsing out the horses’ mouths after dosing them. Man, that stuff is nasty salty!)
Whether the cool weather was the reason, or the change in food and drink, I felt better on this 100 than I have ever felt, physically. I also recovered better. (I was unable to find any BCAAs in time for the ride, as some other 100-mile riders suggested, but I do plan to add that to my regimen as well.)
Out for the first of the 17.5 mile loops. We left the hold a few minutes late (we did that just about all day long) but managed to catch Dually within a few miles. One of the best parts about the ride was the pacing. Ace would lead, then Ned would lead, and all day long we kept up a rather healthy 8-9 mph pace. Sure, we’d stop to let them eat and drink, or take a little extra time at the holds, but we were keeping a reasonable pace that the boys could sustain, hopefully for 100 miles. As we left each hold, I’d tell Janet when I anticipated we’d return based on that pace, and I’m pretty sure we kept our word just about every time.
This loop consisted of trails in and around a spruce tree farm, scalloping large fields, and then sandy forested trails, with some gravel and paved roads connecting them. We also got to ride the dreaded “puddle trail,” which not only had deep and muddy puddles (from which Ned loved to drink) but lots of overhanging branches and limbs, so we had to take our time there.
We caught up with our local friend, Helen Lynn, and her boy Quimby. She’d planned to ride the 100 a bit faster than us, but Quimby had lost his buddy (lame at the previous vet check) so he’d lost a bit of his ambition. He fell in along with us and we all rode the remainder of the entire ride together.
We were at about 58 miles at this point in the ride, and I got a little paranoid about Ace, since at this ride last year he’d been sound and happy for 58 miles, trotted into the hold sound, got untacked and cramped high up on the left hind, ending our day. I asked Rachel if he looked even behind as we trotted down a road and she said “Yes, why?” and I said I was just being paranoid. I was. He never took a bad step for the 100 miles.
This was a nice 50 minute hold (the others had been 40 and 30 minutes) so we had a bit of time to actually sit down, eat and relax. I’m not a big fan of 30 minute holds and we had four of them in this ride. So when we felt that we or the boys needed a little extra time, we just plain took it.
None of us were really looking forward to riding the 17.5 mile loop again, but it actually went quite well. We tried to keep the same pace and nearly did, riding it about 10 minutes slower this time than the first. At the water tank at the midway point of this loop, some of the volunteers from Canada offered us jugs of cold water to pour over the horses, which was great.
Back to camp with 75 miles under our belt, and knowing we only had two loops to go. Up to the vets where we realized Ned had sprung the shoe on his left front foot, the one with the nasty horizontal stress line. Amazingly, he was absolutely square and sound, so he passed the vetting and we found the farrier, had him pull the shoe and just rasp off the edges of his foot, and put on an easy boot. Ned wears an easy boot very well, since he has big, round feet, and happily goes down the trail in them for miles without losing them or damaging his hooves. I didn’t want the ride farrier to try tacking on a spare shoe with that crack in place. Tom (my farrier) and I are going to figure out a plan for that one. (Ned is still wearing the easy boot now in the pasture.)
The other bad news was that Rachel started to feel nauseous after she trotted Ned out. We still don’t know if it was the lamb samosa she’d eaten at the previous hold, or electrolytes, or Advil upsetting her stomach, or dehydration or what, but she felt decidedly unwell.
The farrier time took away from the boys’ eating time, so we stayed a few extra minutes and also got Rachel to drink some electrolyted water and nibble on a little food. I asked Helen if she was going to leave without us, and she just looked at me and rolled her eyes. We all laughed.
Out for the 12.5 mile loop, which we knew we’d be riding in the dark the next time around. It turned out to be the most technical trail with the most twists and turns and I started to worry about if it would be glowsticked, and how heavily. We all made mental notes of the turns and the hazards on trail, as there were a lot of low branches, quick turns from one trail to another and a couple of sections of deep sand.
Poor Rachel. When we trotted, it literally rocked her stomach, and for the next several minutes, she would burp. And let me make a note about Rachel’s burps. [Forgive me, Rachel.] This girl can BURP. I mean frat boy, beer-drinking, serious depth and volume burps. It would have been giggle-worthy, except for the fact that we knew that she felt terrible. She is one tough broad, however, and never whined once, never asked us to slow down, never threatened to quit.
We made fairly good time on this loop, vetted through, the boys still all As and Ace dragging Janet down to the cone and back as though he were vetting in for the start of the ride. We were reassured that the trail would be glow-sticked by our friend Joe, who parked us the day before (we love Joe!), and Janet headed for home. She had a long drive and had to be at work early in the morning and was concerned about making the trip after a short night of sleep. We bid her adieu but I refused to hug her, suspecting I smelled pretty bad.
Rachel still felt like crap, but we had one more loop to ride and had to get our flashlights ready, and our glowsticks on our horses’ breast collars. We had considered doing so the day before, but thought it might be behavior worthy of jinxing us out of actually RIDING the last loop of the ride.
There were only a few other 100 milers out on trail, and I’m sure all of the FEI horses were either finished or withdrawn at that point (only 9 of 24 FEI horses completed), but we got lots of whoops and hollers and yells of encouragement as we headed out on the last loop.
Helen’s horse, Quimby, was pretty brave in the dark, so he took lots of turns leading. At first Ace was rather hesitant and spooky, and I think he actually did better when both of my glowsticks managed to fall off the breast collar. (Guess I’m better off putting them on before I’m weary from 88 miles of riding.) The trail was marked absolutely WONDERFULLY, and we were so grateful! We never had to turn on a flashlight or search for the trail; it was marked to death, and you could see the next glowstick ahead practically anywhere we were on trail. (We found the gentleman who glow-sticked the trail the next day at the Awards ceremony and I not only thanked him profusely, I blew him kisses!)
Each of the boys took turns leading and we could hear Rachel burp repeatedly after each long trot. “Want to slow down, Rach? We can just walk them in.”
“No, I’m fine.”
What a tough chick! [Note to self: My friend Mel Blittersdorf makes and sells Tough Chick reflective helmet decals. Must.purchase.one.for.Rachel.]
Poor Helen was up front on the puddle trail. We were doing fine, remembering which direction to go around the puddles from our first time through the trail, but we went around the last puddle, entirely forgetting the long branch jutting out. It apparently caught Helen right across the shoulders and sent her flying off and down onto the trail. It was dark, but we could hear the loud thud from behind. (Ouch.) Quimby simply stuck around and Helen climbed back on. Another tough broad.
Since Rachel was sick, and Helen was no doubt sore, I appointed myself Head Cheerleader, and every once in a while would pipe up — “Good job, boys! Last loop, almost done! Good boys!”
On the last section of road within a couple of miles of the finish, we were riding three abreast, Ace STILL pulling on me to go faster, Ned with his head and ears up, eyes bright, looking for all the world like he was simply going on a little hack, Quimby right there, strong and true.
Amazing.
In to the finish, where the in-timer, Dave, no doubt delirious from lack of sleep and really, truly gratefully looking forward to being relieved of duties, gushed over us, and gave us our final in-time. 12:12, for a ride time of 15 hours or thereabouts.
Back to the trailer, and since it had gotten quite cold, I scrambled in the dark for wool dress sheets for the boys. Rachel was squatting quietly, just holding Ned as he ate hay, still obviously sick, so I helped her untack and get Ned covered. Ace was still wound up and moving about, but I finally got his boots and tack off and his back covered. (We missed Janet!)
I reassured Rachel we’d find someone to trot Ned, and that she could just go to bed once we were done vetting through. I felt terrible that she felt so awful and I just wanted her to be able to lie down.
You have to love the Canadians. At an American ride, it would be quiet in camp at midnight, with just a few hardy volunteers and vets waiting up for the last of the riders to complete. In Canada it is called “an excuse to party.” There was music on in the tent, people laughing and talking and it is possible that alcohol was being consumed. We led the horses up and I shouted out — “Hey, what’s a girl got to do to get her horse vetted over here?”
Whoops and hollers and cheers went up and the vets flocked around to do the horses’ final vetting. Ace, clearly not over-ridden, had to be reminded to stand still for the hands on, and DRAGGED me through the trot out. (Oh, how I missed you at that moment, Janet!) Absolutely all As on his final vetting, and Stan Alkemade hugged me, knowing it was Ace’s first 100 completion.
Duane Barnett vetted Ned, and Rachel was clearly not up to jogging him out, so I took him and trotted him. Absolutely no hesitation, plenty of impulsion, and as I always do when I finish a 100, I told him over and over as we jogged “Good boy, you’re done, good boy!” He knew.
Crystal Woodhouse, bless her, after finishing her 100 an hour or so prior, showered and waited up for me so she could give me a congratulatory hug. Boy, I hope I didn’t smell too awful! I can’t tell you how badly I needed to brush my teeth.
It is a humbling thing, always, to witness these generous animals perform this incredible act of endurance with such grace and strength, and in some cases, humor. And the army of people it takes to organize and run the ride that accommodates it. There is really nothing quite like a one day 100 mile ride.
The boys were metabolically just fine, simply in need of blankets and hay and water, and Rachel was seriously in need of a bed. She resisted, but I insisted that it was “easy-peasy” to settle the boys in, and told her, in no uncertain terms, to hit the sack. (Ah yes, and that is why they call me “Mean Patti.” Or “Drill Seargent.”)
I had some alone time then, me and the boys, so I just fussed over them a bit, hugged them, thanked them, checked their legs, adjusted their heavy blankets to make sure they wouldn’t get a chill overnight, and just generally loved on them a bit. What kind of lucky girl am I, to be able to do what I do, and to be blessed with two such incredibly athletic horses with such different (and mostly charming) personalities?
And boy, was I pooped. Usually I’m wound up after a 100, unable to even think of going to bed for an hour or more, but I think I had a bit more than my usual plateful of worry for this ride. It wasn’t just about Ace getting around, it was about making sure Ned and Rachel got around too.
It was such a privilege to have Rachel ride and care for Ned so beautifully, and to be able to share him with my friend, knowing he would take care of himself and her, and with all probability get her through her first one day 100. At 16, and with ten years of competition under his belt, I know his endurance days are numbered, so every single ride is precious.
With the boys tucked in and munching hay, their eyes half-closed, I headed for the trailer and a hot shower. And bed.
As usual, I slept fitfully, waking at 6 or so to feed the boys, who were right as rain. Ned, as usual, had a bit of fill in his front legs; experience has taught me that it as much from the heat of wearing the interference boots as anything else. They’d cleaned up almost all of their mountain of hay and nickered for breakfast. Good boys!
Spent the day puttering and cleaning up. Rachel still not well. She spoke to her boyfriend and it turns out he was having a stomach ailment too, so she might have just had a supremely badly-timed case of food poisoning.
We watched the BC trot outs — very impressive, the horses looked great! – as we hand-grazed Ned and Ace. Went to awards, where we learned that there was about a 50% completion rate. This seemed low to me for such an unseasonably cool and pleasant day and what struck me as a very do-able trail.
Ned (down) and Ace dozing about 12 hours after completing; note the easy boot on Ned
Ace, in ice boots, couldn’t resist a bit of piaffe and mouth-yawing as the Ride N Tie horses left camp the afternoon after finishing the 100.
Our plan was to hit the road late in the afternoon to catch the bridge at it’s lowest Canada-to-USA traffic time just after dinner. This all went swimmingly until right before the bridge crossing when I went to take the health papers out of the red vinyl zipped envelope where I ALWAYS KEEP THEM AND THEY WERE NOT THERE.
This resulted in us pulling over at the Canadian Customs Building, ripping the truck and trailer apart searching for them, fruitlessly. I went inside to plead my case to the Customs person on the Canadian side, whose basic words of wisdom were, paraphrasing, “sorry lady, I can’t help you, the US is going to refuse your entry.”
This resulted in roughly 90 minutes of frantic cell phone calls to the endurance ride personnel after hunting down their phone numbers through my husband and the AERC directory and calls to their husbands/wives. Apparently, like me, none of them had cell signal at camp; all went to voice mail. I called my vet, who couldn’t figure out what to do, but gave me the names/numbers of people nearby with whom I might be able to stay, should I not be able to get into the country until Monday when we could get new papers issued. I called my brother in law, Trooper Fred, who works with the DHS Task Force; he couldn’t track down his DHS friend at the border. Finally I went back into Canadian Customs to find out how to turn around; clearly we were going to have to drive the three hours back to camp.
At some point during all of this, Rachel was lying on the Customs area sidewalk, occasionally burping, still obviously in digestive distress. Did I say “Poor Rachel” yet?
A female Customs officer, clearly feeling pity for the nearly-in-tears-slightly-ragged-perhaps-chafed-and-sore middle aged woman in her presence, dug deeper. She searched the file for a copy of our papers, found they’d already been sent to Ottawa. Finally she took us outside, and suggested we simply cross the bridge and plead our case; she suggested that the Customs personnel knew the welfare of the horses was important. I called Rich and he said Fred had just called and suggested we do the same.
Okay, deal done. We were going to throw ourselves on the mercy of US Customs. I asked Rachel if she thought I should cry. She suggested I might do it without coaching anyway.
We presented our ID to the agent in the booth, told him we were in a ‘real predicament’, explained the situation, and he made several jokes, asked us several pointed and surprising questions (was this a test of some sort, I wondered) and kept Rachel’s passport and my license, gave us a slip of paper. We got parked in an off area by an agent and directed inside the Customs office. There was a huge group of people in the room, and so Rachel headed back out to open the horses’ windows and get them some water, anticipating a lengthy wait.
Fortunately, we got called up within minutes, before Rachel even returned, and flustered, I told the agent our situation. At first he said, “I can’t help you, where are your papers?” I explained to him that they “might be” 3 hours back north, that I lived only an hour from the border and that I was worried about the welfare of the horses, since they’d completed a 100 mile trail ride the day prior and were in potential metabolic distress. (Of course, I was pretty certain they were actually wolfing down hay, and mostly just irritated at standing around in a warm trailer.) I did mention my brother in law, who worked with DHS. Suddenly, the agent walked away, came back in mere moments and thrust the passport and license at me and said, loudly, “Get out of here.”
“You mean I can go?” I was just stunned. I thought they’d want to get SOME proof of something, or even just LOOK at the horses.
He thrust the now-stamped little slip back in my hand and said, sternly, ”Don’t let it happen again!”
As if.
Rachel and I were virtually giddy exiting the parking area. The agents had to move a cone to allow me out and the agent teased me, “if you hit it, do I get to have a ride on the horse?” I suggested that I might be under a bit too much duress for a driving test at that exact moment. He let me go. I did not hit anything.
We called and let everyone know we had indeed gotten back into our home country and sure enough, I got a call as I approached our driveway an hour or so later. Yep, I’d left the file folder with my health papers at registration. Yep, they’d be happy to mail them back to me.
Home at 9:30 p.m. Ned was stomping in the trailer the moment we hit the driveway. After they were unloaded and turned out, my boys both drank out of the tank and immediately galloped down to the pasture. Rachel still burping. I poured her a Squirt, hoping that might help her tummy, poured one for myself, added a healthy measure of vodka.
After a good night’s sleep, I was feeling grand. Rachel’s tummy was better this morning; we went over the boys with a fine-toothed comb and they looked great. I’m really not even sore. Going downstairs is the only owie thing; my calves are a little tight.
Yep, we had an adventure, didn’t we?
Next stop, Moonlight in Vermont, July 17th.