Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Hell on the Border Ride - Katrina Mosshammer

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Sunday, December 10, 2006

Hell on the Border Ride - Katrina Mosshammer

I just had to share my ride story about the Hell on the Border Ride this past weekend. For me the Hell was just getting there.


Mom had to work Friday so I took off work and was going to go to her house Thursday night and meet up with Gared Dale and the boys on Friday and drive the rigs up together (Shelia also had to work).


So I get home from work Thursday night between 6 and 6:30 and all I have to do is leave food and water out for the animals staying home and then I'll be on my way. Well I had to change the bandage on my appy mare (who cut her leg during the ice storm the previous week). So far I had not had any problems with it. Well I took the bandage off and it started bleeding for the first time since she had cut it. Well I finally go the bleeding stopped and got her and the other animals taken care of.


I got all of my clothes for the ride in the truck, get the house squared away, get the corgi's in the truck. (Mom already had my mare at her house but I was bringing her a load of hay that was already loaded in my little trailer). I checked the tires and sure enough had a flat on the trailer. Well my air compressor had just died 2 weeks before and I hadn't replaced it yet. So I have to change the tire. I get the Hi-Lift jack out, jack it up, change the tire, start to let it down and it gets stuck. Well in the process of trying to get it unstuck the handle slipped and I now have a beautiful black eye.


Finally get finished with the tire and am ready to go. I get in the truck and go to start it and nothing happens. (I had just moved it the day before with no problems, but by this time it was getting pretty close to 32� outside). Thankfully, I have 2 vehicles so I hooked up the car and jumped the truck. Ok, finally pulling out of the drive @ 9:45. I looked down and the needle is on empty. I pray that I have enough to get to the gas station 7 mi. away. I do and finally start for mom's @ 10:15. I get to mom's @ 12:30.


Mom gets me up @ 7 the next morning to put out a round bale for her horses and then to take my rig over to the tire shop. She then leaves for work. All I have left to do is fill the water tanks in her rig, wrap the horses legs, put the hay in and feed her dogs. I catch the horses, put the hay in, start wrapping their legs, grab the hose to fill the tanks. The hose is frozen solid. So I wait to let it thaw out, finish the horses and feed the dogs. I go out and I now have water the only problem is that when mom hooked up the truck she backed over it and it is now cracked the down whole length. So I have to get out the short hose and pull the rig as close to the well house as possible. I call Gared to find out where and when to meet in town and the person that answers the phone is another lady friend of ours. Mom had the wrong number programmed in her phone. I call Shelia at work and get the right number and we meet and finally head out for the ride. Get to the ride and when I go to back in, I get the 4x4 stuck in the mud and have to be pulled out.


I get Perle checked in. All A's. Yeah, my luck is changing. Get ready to head to the start in the morning and Perle has an absolute fit about leaving her buddy at the trailer. I finally had to get mom to lead her and hold on to her until we could actually go down the trail. As soon as we get going she is a perfect angel. This is only my second ride on her and the first one was a max time 50. So I had decided to let her go fast this time and see what she was capable of (I've only had her since March). We did that first loop with Gared and the boys. We get back to camp and she vets through again with all A's. I find out I'm only about 30 min behind the leaders. She's looking good. I was out about 7 min ahead of the Gared and boys, so I had to leave camp by myself and she did not like that. She wasn't moving out as well as she had on the first loop, but I couldn't really tell if she was tired or just pouting about being alone. Well, that first time we passed some of the other riders she perked right up. The only problem was they were going the other direction (There were some out and back so we had some common trails). She did not want to go the opposite direction. Had to fight her every time we passed somebody until we finally caught up the people in front of us. She moved out perfectly fine behind them and we got back camp and had actually been within 15 min of the time it took us to do the same loop the first time. We get pulsed down. We were 6th and only 48 min behind the first horse. She got all A's again and we decide to stand for BC. We do our hour check and she still has all A's.


Well, long story short, with her athleticism and my heavy weight butt, we got BC. I was so proud of her. I keep think I'm going to find her limitations but I haven't yet. When I bought her I asked Leah if she would want her back if things didn't work out; she said she wasn't worried, she didn't think the mare was going any where. Well Leah you were right. Miss P is here to stay.


Katrina Mosshammer and H. Perle
Central

Monday, December 04, 2006

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