The Further Adventures of Team 91: 2023 Bill Thornburgh Ride

Having reached 5 years of age, and having gotten some schooling in being a riding horse, Trey made his endurance debut at the Bill Thornburgh ride.

TJ Davis rode Trey while I rode Demon. We did the 25 on Sunday.

I arrived on Saturday afternoon right around 4pm. I'd had a meeting at church I needed to attend, so I took the horses with me. They stayed in the trailer, munching happily on hay and watching the meditation group wander around, while I participated in the meeting. The church has a nice traffic circle I was able to park in, where I could see the trailer from the room the meeting was held in.

Watching the world go by at church!

Once we arrived at camp, I unloaded and got the boys hay, water, and sloppy bran mashes. Got our rider packets picked up and paid the entry fee. Then TJ and I took the boys to vet in.

Almost immediately, I traded horses with TJ.

TJ is often considered hard on her horses. I think anyone who thinks she's hard on her horses, hasn't paid much attention to how hard *I* am on my horses. I gave her Demon and took over Trey because I didn't think she was being hard enough!

Trey needed a little bit of schooling before we were able to go to the vet and behave like a good horse.

Overnight, the wind kicked up. The horses' hay all blew away. The vent on the trailer rattled and flapped. And it blew. All. Night. Long.

Good boys eating their dinner

In the morning, I was giving serious thought to not trying this nonsense. The wind was still blowing and my boys weren't able to eat much before it blew away. But, in the end, we saddled up and went.

We're endurance riders. Our tolerance for bullshit knows no bounds.

Our plan from the outset was to start at least 15 minutes after ride start. Our numerous trail rides with Trey had taught us he'll do best if he starts out at the back, rather than trying to have him lead. Especially being out on trail with a number of unfamiliar horses.

Trey, saddled up and ready to go

While we were mounting up, TJ discovered her stirrups weren't where she wanted them, so she hopped back off to adjust them. Trey was a little hopped up and moving around, so I got off Demon so I could help hold him for her.

Unfortunately when I did this, I lost my grip on Demon's reins. He noticed before I could get them back. And decided he needed to go make friends.

Demon took off running for a couple trailers nearby. I set off after him, knowing I wouldn't get to him before he found a horse to be "friends" with. Fortunately, he's not a mean dude. When he found his target, he just snorted and sniffed noses while I snuck in and got a hold of his reins and pulled him away.

So now we were about 20 minutes past start time. TJ elected to lead Trey out of camp, as he was not able to focus while going between rigs and tied horses. Once we were out on trail, she mounted up and we were off.

Despite the lead time we'd given everyone else, it didn't take more than 30 minutes before we caught up to riders. Demon and I were leading, so I hollered that we were passing. The riders pulled off and we kept up a smart trot to get by.

No ride photographer, so just crappy cell phone pics

We passed several more riders, all while moving along at a good pace. This is a really good first ride for a young stallion as its all on 2 track and there's a whole lot of desert to head into to give a wider berth.

We finished the first loop, about 15 miles, in under 3 hours.

Headed out on the second loop, Trey was more focused but still needed led out of camp. We got going again and made very good time.

As we trotted along, I kept looking back to check on Trey, expecting he would start to show signs of needing to slow down. He never did. While he's not as fast as Demon (yet) he's definitely plenty fit.

Trey's biggest difficulty to now as been water. Both crossing it and drinking it. So it was nice to watch him go directly to the water tank and drink very well several times. And when the trail dropped off the rail bed, we discovered we were walking in a very shallow but broad stream. While there was plenty of "not water" it wasn't quite possible to walk through without stepping in water. It can't be said Trey *liked* this, but he handled it well. Helped that it came close to the end of the 25 miles.

At the finish, despite the distraction of other horses close at the vet check, and TJ needing to do a lot of asking for space, Trey's heart rate recovery was less than a minute after Demon's.

We pulled a sub 4 hour 25 for Trey's first ride.