This weekend was the Ride Between The Rivers near Elkin, West Virginia.
We’ve been told over and over again what a FUN ride this was, how tremendous the hospitality, how tight the parking, and we might have also heard something about the moonshine.
So we packed up Sarge (aka The Staypuff Marshmallow Horse) and Ace, and drove south on Friday morning, leaving my house, dogs and house cat under the care of my eldest niece, Alex. I am grateful that this child has finally reached an age (just about 14) where she has become truly useful. I figure I have approximately 10 months before she becomes useful enough that she will no longer think it is “cool” to dogsit for Aunt Patti simply in exchange for taco and brownie fixings, and permission to have a friend or two hang out with her at our home.
Richard and I have been competing for well over a decade and we’ve come to the point that we are selective about the rides we’ll do. Selective about the difficulty of the haul, selective about the ride’s reputation for trail marking and measurement, selective about the fact that we neither roast parts of our anatomy nor freeze them off. We’ve got some sort of complex internal mathematics that we do to determine the amount of fun relative to the amount of hassle or challenge, and we’re not too tough or too proud to take a pass on a ride these days.
This ride is tough, there is no question about that. Note to self: If Carla tells you you should probably pad for this ride, well then, duh, you should probably pad the horses. (We did not, and we spent about 50 miles and 9 or so hours lamenting our error.) Lots of climbs (ready for that), lots of mud due to a couple of storms they’d had in the area that week (not much to be done about that), but the rocks were something we should have prepared for better. So we slowed down and tip-toed through most of the rocky portions of the course. (As I must have said 80-some times during the ride — “If we get through this ride with eight hooves with zero stone bruises, we will be REALLY lucky!”)
That said, the toughness of the trail is balanced by its beauty and incredibly gracious WV hospitality. If you made a caricature of a large group of cheerful and jovial WV horsepeople, divvied up on horses and four wheelers, mixed in a bit of moonshine (or more than a bit), added a country-western cover band and parking so tight that you had no choice but to become very chummy with your neighbors, you’ve got a pretty good picture of ride camp. (We were parked so close to our buddies Carla and Nicole that we flipped a coin about whose awning we’d share and who’d set up their grill, and we shared both.) All this hospitality and the challenge of a beautiful course meant there were 74 fifty-milers and 50-some LD horses packed into, hmm, a 100-horse sardine can.
Sarge and Ace were gentlemen throughout the ride, and we had the pleasure of riding for a few miles several times with both old and new friends. This ride, even though technically part of the NE region, is so close to the MW and SE regions that there was great cross-regional representation. (I think I actually saw a handful of my Facebook “friends” in person for the first time!)
The ride was not without some foibles. Rich’s horse, Sarge, was on a set of fairly old shoes, and by the end of the first 18 mile loop, one was loose and another had shifted. An entire team of farriers, supervised by the farrier who had trained them all, were available, fortunately, and Sarge’s shoes got secured such that we were able to get around the course without losing any. (Thanks, guys!)
Thankfully also, we were spoiled rotten by our friends’ crew — Allison, Cody and Gina were there as we came into each hold and helped us cool, tack, untack and just generally manage the horses during the vet checks. Cody, who is not necessarily a horseperson but has that calm and steady personality that horses seem to love, also got to trot Sarge for the vets — his first trot-out ever, and both he and Sarge got As!
At the last hold, Sarge’s gut sounds were diminished despite really good eating on his part. Sarge is a bit of an enigma. He’s a voracious eater at home but a fussy eater at rides, and in the past has –while I wouldn’t recommend it– subsisted for an entire ride on a single feedstuff. Carrots OR apples OR oats OR grass OR, at one fateful ride where I doled them out judiciously all day long, Nature Valley granola bars. At each of those rides, he’s maintained good gut sounds while worrying me into a profound state of irritation (partly at having to have, at the ready, an entire ride’s worth of a single rotating food choice).
The irony of Sarge is that at the rides where he eats best, his gut sounds are the worst, despite probiotics and judicious and well-timed electrolyting. He has done better eating over the last season or two, and best when he’s traveling down the trail and spending his time at the holds with one of his barnmates. At Saturday’s ride, he ate great, so we were surprised to hear that his gut sounds were nearly silent at the final hold; Claire Godwin, DVM, asked that he come back for a re-check. I was relieved when he went back to our trailer and ate everything in sight. Hay AND oats AND carrots AND apples AND a granola bar.
I have seen Sarge with that unhappy wrinkled-nostril look and he never once had that on Saturday, so after a guarded thumbs-up from Claire, we set off for the final loop with plans for a lot of smorgasboarding along the trail. (And yes, we were armed with granola bars.)
It took one long pause at a grassy spot before Sarge really settled down and started grazing with enthusiasm, but he got with the program and was grabbing leaves and mouthfuls of grass for the entire 9 mile loop. Our slow-down gave us the opportunity to see (aka get passed by) several more friends, including one moment that was either hysterically funny or terrifying (so I opted to gasp in horror and then laugh until I almost fell off when it all appeared to turn out without incident).
Lani Newcomb and Dana formerly-Reeder-and-can’t-remember-her-new-married-name were riding a couple of Lani’s draft crosses and in the last mile before the finish, Lani made the grave error of allowing her mare to canter. (Apparently, and with good reason, this is something she does not typically do.) They were behind us at that point, and I heard thundering hooves followed by “coming by on your RIGHT!” in Lani’s booming voice (tinged with a bit of panic, perhaps). Since I was on the right side of the road, I had to do a little quick figuring in my head and yanked my now-seeming-very-small-and-delicate-flower-of-a-horse into the left hand lane, just as Lani and her mare roared past, followed by Dana (laughing) at a very slightly slower pace, on the other draft cross.
I guess they really wanted to beat us. <big grin>
We reached the finish line, and a crew of volunteers, their mood perhaps enhanced by some ethanol intake, gave us our placings (48th and 49th) and offered us a swig of sour apple moonshine, which I have to say tasted pretty durned good at the end of a tough ride. I’d have liked to have offered some to Ace, who was still unable to stand still after 50 miles of tough trail, but I am respectful of AERC’s zero tolerance drug policy. (For horses.)
Sure enough, our slow-down-and-chow strategy worked and Sarge was all As on his final vetting. We tucked the boys into hay and ice boots and settled in for a shower, cocktails, dinner, cocktails, awards, cocktails, laughter and cocktails, not necessarily in that order.
A couple of hard luck awards on this ride. One to Cathryn Rice, whose horse went over on her before the start of the fifty. Thank heavens for helmets, as even WITH her helmet on, Cathryn Rice lost consciousness and got to take a trip to the hospital instead of down the trail. Apparently she argued with the ride management a bit before getting shipped off in the ambulance — “Does this mean you are not going to let me ride?”
Um. No.
Cathryn was alive and well and showing off the series of photos that the photographer caught of her fall later in the afternoon.
Emily Matthews didn’t get hurt, but had a heckuva time simply getting to camp. One breakdown, and three potential haulers all failed before she finally got to camp with the fourth driver, after 22 hours camped out at the dealer’s lot. And then her horse got pulled at the finish. <shaking head>
Rough weekend but she still looked cheerful and accepted a lovely horse-shoe-created prize made and donated by the ride’s farriers.
After awards, we putzed around and took care of the horses and the acoustics in camp made the music from the tent sound even better at our trailer. Indulged in a bit more moonshine and lots of story-telling with our friends, but no worries, what’s said in West Virginia stays in West Virginia.
Put this ride on your to-do list. We are told that they are getting a bigger ride camp field for next year, which might decrease the coziness but will definitely allow for more riders! And this terrific ride, managed by Roger and Jennifer Poling, and run by the able-bodied and four-wheelered members of the RBRRC club, is one of those rides where the fun/challenge teeter-totter definitely tilts in the FUN direction.
Thanks to everyone who made this ride such a great time!