Marie and Willow - Marie's first CTR!
Shelley and Spirit - Shelley's first CTR!
The weather forecast for the weekend was not looking good. We thought the rain was going to really dampen our spirits (pardon the pun), but it held off. By the time the rain started on Friday, we were all set up for camp and sitting around enjoying little camp humour. For the most part, the rest of the weekend was quite dry.
On Saturday morning, all five horses vetted in without issue and once all 30+ horses were vetted in, the ride began. Troy/Wind and Marie/Willow headed out first. We tried to put some other horses between us i the line up to keep some space between Wind and Spirit so that they wouldn't try to catch up to each other.
Marie holds Willow as the vet checks her over pre-ride on Saturday.
A few minutes later Shelley/Spirit, Lynn/Paris and Kathleen/ Ali (Team Two) headed out on the trail. Within minutes we picked up a trot and were on our way. As it turns out, I spent a good part of the the next five hours saying "Shelley, just try to trot him a little bit slower"! Poor Shelley must have gotten tired of listening to me. Spirit, of course, wanted nothing to do with "trotting a little bit slower" so she had her hands full. I was trying to get the speed down "just a notch" so that Paris would be completely relaxed. Turns out I had nothing to worry about, her heart rate at the hold and at the end was awesome! Spirit's on the other hand, was a bit high (still well within parameters) probably because "trotting slower" is NOT in his comfort zone!
Team Two arriving at half-way.
The ride is well marked and has a lot of variety. There are lovely wooded paths, some great for a good canter and other wooded areas that are wet and muddy where walking is pretty much the only option - technically challenging in that manner especially with about 30 other riders on the trail. It was great training for Shelley and Kathleen regarding how to juggle where you had to walk with when to go faster, and determining whether to pass other groups of horses or stay behind them, all while keeping an eye on the required 6 mile an hour average. We are putting together a helmet cam video of the trail itself and hope to have it up on the blog within the next few days.
We did catch up to Troy/Wind and Marie/Willow at one point and passed them. It was a bit of a challenge for Troy to hold Wind back, complicated by the fact that Troy was riding with a sprained wrist! That's a lot of horse to hold back with one hand! Eventually, they caught up and passed us. That left Shelley holding back Spirit, a) because Wind was passing and going out of sight and b) because there was the intermittent voice behind her still droning..."Shelley could you trot just a little bit slower." Poor Shelley, she was a good sport about it all and did her best. She said that Spirit was a challenge but not as bad as he can be when Wind is pulling away out of sight.
The last mile or so of the ride is through quite a bit of muck and so, a lot of the riders caught up with each other. As a result, many of us ended up coming into the end of the ride together. It was quite a sight! Our optimum ride time was 5 hours 10 minutes (you have 15 minutes leeway on either side). Team Two came in at 5 hours and 12 minutes. Team One came in at 5 hours and 14 minutes. All five Tidal Treasures rider/horse teams passed final pulse criteria, trot out and hands on presentation to the vets. Great job everyone! Paris placed 6th place in Conditioning. Kathleen and Marie were the only two juniors riding so they both placed very well! Kathleen/Ali received first place for conditioning. Marie/Willow second place. Trail Horse placings were reversed; Marie/Willow first place; Kathleen/Ali second place!
Over the next few days we will be posting a helmet cam video of some of the trail and a slide show of photos of the riders. Thank you to the McDonald family and all the other volunteers that make this ride possible. It was a fantastic weekend.
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