Karen and Tigger’s Virginia City 100 Endurance Ride Story, Pt 2

I was on…the horse.  We were trotting down the trail!  The sun was coming up and I had a big grin.  Tigger did too, I could tell.  We were on our way.  I was getting excited.  This was for real and I was able to breath a sigh of relief that I was on the horse, motoring down the trail getting a start on doing this 100 mile ride.

The last time I did this ride was on my beloved Dream Weaver.  Every time I do a ride that goes over trail where I rode him, it brings tears and joy.  An emotional experience. How could it not be.  I can feel Weaver’s presence on a lot of rides.  It was so hard at first but now I feel joy in the sensation I get from it.  I miss him so bad but now I am able to appreciate all that he gave and taught me — lots of hard lessons but also lots of wonderful experiences. I now know to appreciate every single ride that I have.  Even when they don’t go right.

For awhile I maintained a nice steady and consistent pace behind Sally and Lou.  They were doing a great job with keeping a good pace going.  They kept their horses in a nice easy trot, under 10 mph.  After a few miles we started to spread out a little bit more as the terrain changed and got a little rockier and we started doing a bit more up and down.

For awhile we played tag back and forth with a group of others – Steve, Jean, Sally, Tinker, Heather, Debby, Lou and Annie.  Things were going really well for the most part.  I was doing a pretty good job keeping Tig from getting too amped up or wired.  He didn’t like when other horses passed and trotted faster than I’d let him trot but he was handling it just fine.

From the very first water, Tig drank really well.  I kept his little trot up quite a bit, only walking where it was very rocky.  We even did quite a bit of downhill trotting because I knew we had to in order to make it through the ride in time.  This worked out well because you see….Tigger hasn’t quite yet figured out that he could walk faster than he can jig (I call it “tigging”).  So rather than try to get him to walk I let him trot slowly, sort of a cross between tigging and a full speed trot.  This made it easy on Tigger, and me — because he’s smooth and comfortable to ride like that.  Plus he was going over all of the uneven rocky ground like a pro.

We had a couple more waters on the trail as we climbed up over the mountains.  Soon I could see Reno off into the distance.  The scenery was spectacular in all directions.  We were already getting warm though blessed with a fair amount of cloud cover.  We finally made it up to the trot-by and got the go-ahead from Michele Roush to carry on!

We had a bit more climbing to do.  This ride is tough, the horses were already working hard and it didn’t seem to let up.  Up, up, up, then down, and up, and down down, then up and finally….we got on the road that goes down for a long way, a few miles.  This was a good opportunity for Tigger to make time.  Annie wanted to stop to take a pee break but I couldn’t keep Tigger still, he was not having any part of standing still quietly as there were several horses catching up to us from behind and it was absolutely the worst spot we could have tried stopping.  I had to tell her sorry that I couldn’t stay with her any longer.  I already knew I couldn’t ride with anybody else because I would not finish the ride.  I absolutely *had* to ride Tigger at his own pace.

I continued tigging down the trail.  Tigger had totally relaxed now that we got into our own “space” and was on a loose rein, rating perfectly.  I was really taking the scenery in here looking at the pine trees and the orange colored mountainside in spots.

We passed Merri Melde who was taking ride photos (the first photo of us trotting was taken by Merri) a little farther down the road, closer to civilization. From this point we jogged in through the neighborhood and streets towards the market and the vet check.  I passed the first three horses coming out of the check as I went in.  I arrived with about 17 minutes to spare before the 9 a.m. cutoff.  Right on time!  Tig pulsed in right away at 56.  Criteria at this check was 60.  We went right through and vetted.  Everything looked good!

After vetting I headed over to the crew area where my crew Amy was with her truck.  She already had everything out for us.  This was great!  I planted Tigger in front of a pile of horse feed and then planted myself in a chair with a nice cool drink.

Tig did well eating going between the Omolene 200, Complete Horse 10 and the crimped oats and two kinds of hay.  I put a little salt in the feed and fed some alfalfa — that was my way of electrolyting Tig on the ride.  Dave says he is easier to syringe now than he used to be but I never tried since Tig was eating well enough I felt confident that he was getting all he needed to stay hydrated and get through the ride.

It was so good to be this far and THIS was when I really realized that here I was, for real – doing the Virginia City 100!  I felt so lucky.

From this point we were going to ride back up over the mountain, down Jumbo grade and into Washoe Lake State Park.

More serious workout time for the horse since we had to go up Bailey Canyon.  We headed out of the market vetcheck after a 45 minute hold refreshed and ready to meet the trail.

I was again going along doing a nice easy trot on a loose rein with a happy horse.  Soon we turned and were heading up into Bailey Canyon which gets a bit rough and technical in spots.

It’s slow going in Bailey Canyon. Tig cruised right along going nicely through the rough stuff.  Before I knew it we caught up to other horses and riders.  I ended up behind Dave and White Cloud, which I think both horses liked since they live together.

When I first started riding Tigger he tripped and stumbled and was a real clod.  Tig has come a long way in his trail negotiating skills.  I felt really confident and relaxed on him.  I could sense that we had a good level of trust.  I let him choose where to go and he let me control his speed.  It was a nice trade off.  I felt like we were really hitting it off and really was enjoying the ride.

It was fun going up and down in the canyon around the rocks and trees.  The rough trail took it’s toll though, and Dave’s horse lost all of his glued on boots and then the not-glued on ones.  We were stopping often to replace them and deal with that.  It actually was good for Tigger because he was now more mentally capable of standing without it frying his brain.  Good boy!

Soon we were on our way again and I followed Gina, Carol and Dave the rest of the way up and out of Bailey Canyon.  I felt bad that Dave was having so many boot malfunctions as it wasn’t his fault – I think it was just bad glue.  The boots on Tigger were still on good and I breathed a sigh of relief that I wasn’t having to deal with this problem on my own horse.

We made it to the top of Bailey Canyon and now we were back on jeep road heading up and over Jumbo Grade.  It was a ways in to Washoe Lake.  I let Tigger go at a steady pace.  The others trotted faster than I did but then walked more which allowed me to get a minute ahead where we stayed.  It was good timing because Tig was able to stay level headed and he caught on quickly that if he did an easy trot that I’d let him do it and not try to force him to walk.  He’s a Tigger, afterall and was just too happy and enthusiastic to walk yet.  You don’t even want to know how long it took to get him to walk, though we did finally get there.

The cloud cover was still with us and there was a breeze now too.  Perfect for the horses, though I still worried that it was too warm and dry so when we got down to where there was water I let Tigger really tank up.  Walked him a few feet then he went back into the water and drank even more.  Just a little ways down there was a water trough and Tig drank really well there again too.

Still more work ahead for the horse – back up a bit, then down.  We were on the same trail that some of the Washoe Valley ride goes on, and Tigger knew it.  As soon as he crested the final hill and headed downward towards Washoe Lake he really started bouncing along like a *really* happy Tigger!  It was kind of fun to feel his enthusiasm.  He was also announcing himself, whinnying – I really think he thought he was going to get there and his trailer would be there waiting for him.  Or maybe he thought he was going to be done?  It was kind of cute.  He zipped right along and before I knew it we were arriving at the 39 mile point.  Tig headed straight for the water trough and I dismounted – wow – the ground was so close!  I love this little 14.2 hh horse.  It’s great on a 100 to be on a short horse.  I was having such a great time feeling Tigger move down the trail, like we were having a perfect dance.  I knew that we were having a really special ride and was really appreciating it and taking it all in.  How lucky could I be?  This was so much fun!

Kay took my vet card to write my arrival time.  She said that Tigger looked happy.  He was!  So was I!  At this point we had a trot out (dismounted) vet check and a 15 minute hold.  Tigger’s pulse was down when they checked so I went right over and vetted through with Susan McCartney.  Merri took a photo of us trotting out.

Now I was really loving life!  Amy was here and had stopped and picked up a sandwich for me.  She also had my cooler of drinks, and all of the horses feed out and ready.  Amy was also crewing for other riders.  She was doing a great job, definitely on her toes keeping up with all of us!

I plugged Tig back into the feed pile and attached myself to a chair.  How cool to have a crew and not have to do all of this myself!  The 15 minute hold time went by fast, in fact it went by so fast I was a few minutes late getting out but it was okay since Tig was eating well.

I knew I couldn’t afford being late very often on the checks since the ride had 3:15 in hold times altogether.  I’m not used to that much forced hold time.  I prefer to be able to give my horses breaks on rides when I think it’s best suited for them and will most benefit them.  I don’t do that many 100′s though, so I had to adapt.  I understood that they really needed to have a lot of hold times for the overall benefit of all of the horses.  Not everybody will stop and spend the time when it’s needed to let their horses have a break or eat.

We had 39 miles down and headed out of Washoe Lake looking forward to more trail!  The trail coming up was some of the hardest on the ride.  This is where some new trail had been added that made the course a lot more difficult.

To be continued….