Shamrock -saturday

Bobby asked me if I wanted to ride together on saturday since R was taking a day off from riding and Tice (pronounce TC) and Shade were going well together. I said sure, any time I have a chance to ride with someone with 5000 miles of experience I take it. Bobby wanted to get 5000 miles on Tice (he needed 130) so had to ride all 3 days. She is dropping him in Utah on her way home, he will have a retirement from endurance with her stepdaughter who is a good rider and will enjoy trail-riding with him. I picked a chair for my completion award on friday. Bob Atherton teased me that I must have a LOT of chairs. I told him mine keep disappearing. Otherwise I would be up to 5 chairs now, which would not be so many if I was ever a trailer that other folks flocked to but I don't have the hospitality gene I guess. I just wander off to wherever other people are gathering. Saturday's ride was not starting until 7 am but I figured I should get up even earlier to allow time to vet in in the morning before tacking up. They were letting folks vet with tack I guess but I went over at 6 without tack to vet in. Shade was good to go again. I got her easy boots on the front feet again, got over to roll call on about the 2nd call of our # and we set off with Bobby and Tice towards the end of the pack but without worrying about being passed by any later starters. It felt quite hot the first loop. It had been just as warm on friday but with a stiff breeze that made it feel nicer at least for us riders. We took just under 4 hours to do the loop. Shade had decided that soaked hay cubes were 'da bomb' so that is mostly what she got. I decided to leave giving her mash to eat until I was tacking back up so Grey would not gobble too much while Shade was dozing rather than eating.

Loop number two was going fairly well but about 1/2 through Shade hit a rock and knocked the clamp loose from her left easy-boot. I had been having trouble with the saddle slipping when I mounted so I decided to ignore it, I figured I would hear the silence instantly if it came off so I would not LOSE it. Well Shade stumbled and knocked the boot off. It must have flown way off to the side because it was not visible. We walked back a bit in case it had come off earlier but after 3 hundred yards I told Bobby I knew the boot had been still on at that point. We were past the rocky area and I had another boot in the trailer so I did not try to search the very brushy hillside for the boot, but instead took the right boot off so Shade was even and we continued on. S and L passed us when the boot came off and stayed ahead into the vet check. Shade vetted fine again, we ate our preferred goop and tacked up for the last loop. It was threatening to rain again. I grabbed my duster in hopes that being really prepared for rain would ward it off. Bobby chose to just use her short rain jacket again. We got rained on again and again it quit after 30 minutes. I had grabbed twine to tie my duster on and decided to just tie it around my waist rather than trying to get it re-tied to the saddle. FYI this does not work real well, especially for getting back on after you get off to open a gate and pee. We passed Scott and Laurie on this loop by just a few minutes so we were not the tail enders. Bobby had wanted to finish by 7, we did not make it until 7:10. I had hoped not to need any of the extra 75 minutes from the ride being a 55 rather than a 50 myself but I was not willing to push much since we did have the extra time and the trail was wet in spots and had some rock to pick through in other spots. They had the dinner and awards shortly after we got in. I chose to keep taking care of Shade, I knew they had plenty of ribs and chicken to mostly feed everyone again on sunday and since I had gotten my chair I was content if I just got a tee-shirt for completion after everyone had picked out what they wanted.

I drank a ND red beer every night with dinner on this ride. This not a Killians type beer, but putting tomato juice or my case V-8 in the beer. V-8 has more electrolytes than gator-ade, it was really refreshing with the supermarket Busch beer. I had beef ribs and chicken for supper on saturday, plus pasta salad with lots of veggies and french bread, I could barely eat any of the chicken. I walked up and grabbed a baseball type cap for my completion. I have quite a few caps now, but I always need a cap to put on over the helmet hair after riding and they tend to come into the house when I get home and not make it back to either p/u or trailer so its nice to have a bunch and leave some in the big trailer and some in the p/u for when I'm taking just a day trip with the little trailer. The horses barely got any walking around to graze and scavenge food this night as I was out of daylight after eating. People had lobbied the RM to start at 6:30 or as close as possible on sunday to beat the heat. I overheard her telling a volunteer 'and its only supposed to get to 70 tomorrow but this way we will be done a little quicker --you know that Scott, Laurie, Bobby and Teresa are going to take until 8 pm tomorrow to finish (well a 6:30 start would mean we only had until 7:45 maximum time to complete.) I blanketed the horses, with Shade getting her wool cooler under the HIB rain sheet again, made 2 pans of soaked hay cubes for them, boy am I glad I bought the bag of hay cubes they really like tuesday before our weekend, brushed my teeth and wished I had brought floss --we didn't even have corn on the cob but it felt like I had something that brushing didn't quite get out of my gums in one spot. Bobby wanted to ride together again on sunday and I said --'as long as Shade vets good in the morning'. Gave Shade her last thing electrolytes again. It seemed to be working really well giving her the elytes at night, before the ride and at each vet hold so I figured I would stick with this.