There was no small amount of trepidation coming into Fire Mountain this year. After he scared me at Sesenta Años, and then not getting to start due to an abscess at Cayuse, I was quite stressed about getting Demon through this ride. I had also added QuickStuds (a traction device) to his composite shoes, as I felt he had less traction than he rightly ought to. Adding (or reducing) traction always has the potential to be wrong. I had ridden him 14 miles and he felt fantastic with the traction, but 14 miles isn't 50 and I wasn't completely convinced I'd done the right thing by him.
We arrived in camp later than I'd hoped due to issues with my new water carrying plan. I'd purchased a modular truck rack and half moon water tanks. After assembling the truck rack, we put the tanks on and I finally filled them on Thursday morning. By the time I'd driven the truck down to load hay, that modular truck rack had revealed it's weakness. It was not going to do the job. The tanks had to be drained and the truck rack pulled off. I got one of my 55 gallon drums and put that in, filled it, finished loading, and we were finally on the road by 10am, arriving in camp about 2pm.
Camp was downright packed. It took several fits and starts before we were able to park. The ride manager later said it was the first time camp had filled up to the point people were camping on the road outside camp. I got us squeezed in as close to our neighbors as I could in hopes of leaving enough room for more rigs.
Day 1
In the morning, I saddled up and headed out for a civilized 7am start. It's my habit to leave after the leaders on rides like this. I do not like to let Demon get caught up with the leaders and seeing who of the hotshoes was there, I was not eager to leave before they were well up the trail (a solid 5-10 minutes after the start). By the time we hit the trail, the controlled start had reached its terminus and the hotshoes were off up the trail.
Demon was plenty ready to go while being controlled and careful about it. He did get a little goofy when I finally asked for the trot. I definitely had a lot of horse!
The first loop went by quickly, and we were back in camp for the first hold around 9:30am The second loop was harder to keep Demon motivated. He's got this habit of getting what I call "midday doldrums," during which time he would just.... rather not. This time period is generally between 11am and 3pm. Once the sun reaches its zenith and begins to descend, he starts to perk up. But this is not especially conducive to completing rides, so I've been working on getting him past this particular habit. I started using intervals with him to keep him moving. We'd do 10 minutes trotting, then 10 minutes walking, terrain permitting. He perked up with this method, especially once we reached the apex of the hill and started back down. On the third loop, he was still kinda dopey, so we continued with intervals until we got back to the downhill and he fairly cruised himself in.
After the last year we've had, I very nearly elected to pack it up and head home after succeeding in getting a completion. It felt rather like tempting fate to continue. But, I stuck it out.
Day 2
This was a 55 mile ride, so the start was at 6:30. The sun was just brightening the sky as the leaders once again made their way out of camp. The first loop was a very long, 40ish mile go. The first vet check was in the middle of the loop, so an out check. I made sure to pack a bag (the one with my little three footed folding stool in it) with hay and a bucket for the 30 minute hold.
As we were riding through "town," the most bizarre thing happened. Demon and I were trotting along perhaps 100 yards behind the next rider, when a small pickup truck drove onto the trail, honking at the rider to stop. By the time we caught up, this person was interrogating the other rider about what we were doing, why he'd seen hoof prints on the trail days earlier, on and on. I shrugged and said it's a permitted event, and people are allowed to ride horses on the trail, something to that effect, and rode on. I hoped the other rider would follow suit, but she did not. After a few strides, I turned back and told the guy to go back to ride camp and ask for the manager, since he wanted to "be informed," then took off again. Later in the morning, as I was passing by Brian, one of the ride officials, I told him about this encounter, just so he'd know what was going on.
We'd been told the first check would be about 20 miles in, and we'd pass through at 15 miles, do an additional 5, and have our hold. Well. The first time I arrived at the hold, my GPS showed 15.5 miles. OK, not so far off. Then as we were riding along, I was thinking it was gonna be a lot more than 5 miles to go around the hill and come back. I'm reasonably familiar with the area, having done several rides there, and 5 miles seemed a bit of underestimating it. When we ultimately arrived back for the hold, my GPS showed 24.5 miles.
After our hold, I got us going again and used more intervals to keep our pace up. We crossed the highway and made our way on the fire roads. The ribbons were pretty sparse on this section. At some point, I managed to lose the trail and I'm pretty sure I missed a check point, but we muddled through and made it back to camp. I couldn't trust my GPS reading since we'd been off track, so I don't even recall what it was.
After our hour hold, we went back out and did the much shortened third loop from day 1, finishing strong and passing the vet check well.
Day 3
Day 3 trail was Day 1 trail in a different order. So we headed out for the longest loop of 20 miles at 7am, feeling good and happy to be alive. We did more intervals, this time doing 10 minutes trotting and 5 minutes walking. We finished the loop in good order, and there, as I'm riding into camp, is that guy from the day before, parked just inside the gate and watching. I called Brian over and informed him he was there so it could be dealt with, whatever "it" was.
After our trot out, the vet, Mike Peralez, said he "saw something" on Demon's right front 2 or 3 times during our trot out. This immediately made me a bit paranoid. He had tripped really hard on the first day, and I'd been dwelling on it despite a lack of repeat performances, to the point I am suspicious the problem is one of the studs in his right front shoe is sunk in too far. So for Mike to point out that particular leg... well it made me a bit spooky.
After our hold we set out on the second loop, this time feeling kinda like we were taking time to pay attention to our surroundings. I was a bit nervy since being told "something" was going on, even though I felt and saw absolutely nothing. I abandoned intervals for the time being, focusing instead on going fast enough to complete.
Somewhere on this loop who should show up again but Mr I Wanna Be Informed. He was on a motorcycle, and he was talking to the riders ahead of us when we came down the hill. They left him shortly before I arrived, and I started Demon trotting after giving him a long look. He said something about having seen us at "start/finish" and I told him, why, yes, I'd seen him, too. He took off shortly after I passed and when I caught up to the other riders I asked what he'd said to them. Evidently he claimed he was the security guard for the big property out there in the middle of nowhere we'd passed, and tried to talk the riders into going over to the compound so he could take pictures of them in front of the house. They sensibly declined and continued on their way.
You meet all kinds in this endurance thing.
When we got in for the 1 hour hold, I presented Demon to Susan McCartney. After our trot, while she was finishing the exam, her scribe mentioned the note Mike had put in earlier about "watch right front." She scowled a bit, looked at the card, looked at the horse, then shook her head and said "I didn't see anything." That certainly put my mind somewhat at ease. I've had Susan vet my horses many times and I respect her judgment and lameness detection skills. Still, Mike had called out a leg that had already done something weird, so I couldn't entirely dismiss his observation, either.
Our third loop we did a bit more enthusiastically, having been judged completely sound by Susan, but I still didn't push super hard. But once we were headed downhill back toward camp, Demon perked up quite a lot and we rather sailed into camp. I had to hold him down to a walk for the last mile. He vetted through fine, although Mike did once again note something about that right front.
Overall it was a fantastic weekend and it went off without a hitch. I'll have to pull his shoes (he's about due a trim anyway) and see if my suspicions about that stud are correct. Maybe with the studs I'll be able to get a reset and use the same shoes for Laurel Mountain. We'll do LDs at Laurel, since the plan is the 100 at 20 Mule Team.
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| EasyShoe Versa Grip with 5 QuickStuds |
I also think we've got the electrolyte thing handled. I gave him a tube of electrolytes at least 3x per ride day, plus more if it seemed like he needed it. He was doing very well and his recoveries are much more in line with what I expect from him. It's just a matter of being sure to remember to administer them!
Oh, and during that 3rd loop, I was asked what my favorite colors are, to which I cheekily responded "gray and blue." As many know, I ride in green and yellow, and my horses wear green and yellow. Over the years, there has been many a guess, from Green Bay Packers to John Deere, none correct. Well, there is a story, and I wrote about it lo these many years ago here.
And, if you're interested in the story of making it through escrow, you can read all about it here.
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