Karen's Musings & Endurance Ride Stuff

This ride has been going on since 1975 and is quite possibly the oldest ride in the Mountain Region of AERC. I had a fantastic time and the weather was really nice during the entire event. My horses also did very well though Bo started to develop scratches on his three feet that have white hair - not bad and not enough to make him lame but it is something I need to watch with him.

We finished 17th today out of 37 on the 50. Got up to 76 degrees and was beautiful, we had a really nice ride. I took lots of photos and will post them as soon as I can. Dave Rabe and I drove about 120 miles and are staying at a place in the middle of nowhere that has a rodeo grounds before making the even longer trip home tomorrow.

It is always a joy to get to see Marian, Stacy, Kelly and their family at this ride. Nice people! Also got to see and visit with the Duck and Annie plus a lot of riders who are all looking good. It’s so good to get to see people that you only see a couple of times a year when ride season starts going again.

Linda Fisher’s granddaughter riding the pony in the LD was priceless! Check endurance.net for more photos from Steve Bradley. He hasn’t uploaded them all to smugmug yet but when he does I’ll post the link. I have so many photos to share of the trail - this ride gets it’s name deservedly so - what awesome colors and scenery we get to ride through!

This ride is a difficult one for the horses. Lots of motorcycle woops plus plenty of hardpacked and rocky trails. Deep sand too. Bo learned how to go over the trippy-rocks gracefully and between this and the NASTR ride last weekend is a pro at the motorcycle woops!

I had an overall perfect ride. Especially where my hoof boots are concerned - all of the glue-ons I used stayed on 100% but it is the strap ons that really blow me away. I am totally impressed with how well they worked and how clean they came off of Chief. I can see why there is such a following for these boots and why so may others are joining in. There have been a lot of improvements in them even since I started using them.

Will write more after I get caught up and can process my photos. So far the trip home is going well. Bo rested for four hours before I hauled him 120 miles and is going to get to rest overnght before going the rest of the way tomorrow.

I am rethinking taking Bo on High Desert next weekend. I don’t want to do too much with him and he has done two days here plus a day at NASTR a week ago, which was a difficult ride. He is so strong now that I just worry about doing too much on him. I may still ride Chief a day at the ride next weekend. I don’t know I’m just thinking aloud. Hmmmmmm…..


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