MONK Wins 50 Mile FEI Endurance Ride

FEIRedHorse.blogspot.com, Chris Martin

Sunday, April 12, 2009
Get R Done, FEI Endurance Ride
MONK Wins 50 Mile FEI Endurance Ride
at Get R Done, Inyokern, CA

There is a reason not many people live in Inyokern, CA, that reason is weather. We made the 10 hour drive to the ride and arrived at about 5PM on Thursday. The wind was blowing maybe 40mph before it really picked up. I got MONK's food and water out and tied him to the trailer and went inside and hunkered down and read my book. The trailer was rocking from the wind blasts. As soon as it got dark I went out and put on his blanket and walked him around a bit. The wind blew until I fell asleep at about 10PM.

Friday morning came and the wind was gone. Tempature was mid 40's so I stayed inside for awhile after I got walked MONK and got him some more grain.

The camp is situated about 1/2 mile from where everything else happens. We made the trip over to the vet area at about noon and vetted in. I actually made the jog down and back without my knee giving me too much problem. We headed back to camp to wait for Lindsay and Eric to arrive. The crewing area is at the main vetting area so you have to haul all of your stuff to the crewing area, so I loaded up the truck and drove down and then hauled all of the stuff the 100 yards to the crewing area. Being there early help secure us a primo spot, so I laid out the water buckets, chairs and ice chest in a area of about 12x12.

When they showed up at about 5pm we had to get the saddle adjusted for her stirrup length. I took off the fenders that I ride in and put on the webbers for her. That took more then a few minutes and I had her ride MONK around for a few minutes to make sure we got it right. Once we had the saddle correct we had to take all of the tack down to the main vet area to get Lindsay weighed. For the 50 mile FEI ride you have to weigh 155#'s. The scale weighed in KG and she was 70.2 which is just over the weight requirement.

Lindsay arrived at the trailer at 6am to get monk ready for the 7am departure. Everything went smoothly and we were ready to start a warm up a little after 6:30am. MONK looked good as did Lindsay, they make a great pair. The game plan was to have fun and keep MONK safe. Lindsay has 200 endurance miles of holding MONK back. We took a video of the start of the ride as we drove along side the riders. When we stopped to turn around Lindsay and MONK were 7th.

Controlled start, see video in Picassa link. Eric and I waited out on the trail to take some pictures of the coming down the trail. Lindsay was riding with 3 other riders, so top 4 riders, all FEI riders right together. We took some video and headed back to wait for them to arrive.

They did something that I had not seen before with the gate into the hold. As it was explained, you come into the first water troff where crewing is allowed. As soon as your horse is ready, 64bpm, you call for a time. If you are FEI and you reach the vet and your horse is above 64 your are out. If you are AERC you get to go to the end of the line and start over.

Being first in line we were not able to take advantage of what the other riders figured out in a heartbeat. As soon as all vets were busy you just called for time where ever your horse was because you knew you were going to stand in line for awhile. That way you got quite a jump on others who did not figure it out... Might work in a perfect world.

After lunch all 4 of the 50 mile front runners headed out. We met them at various locations along the trail and took more video.

At the last water trough all 4 riders came in together, all looking strong. I gave MONK his electrolytes quickly and Lindsay was out on the trail. She got about a 90 second jump on the other three riders. She held this lead all the way to the finish line............ Remaining 3 riders showed up 1 minute after Lindsay.

The other problem that caused miner problems was the scales at the finish line did not work.. Now this would not make a big difference except that FEI top ten riders have 10 minutes to present their horses for a CRI. If your horse has reached the 64 bpm you can get a completion at that time. If not then you have to come back in 30 minutes for another exam, but the CRI is used to compute your scores for Best Condition. The problem is that the finish line is about 200 yards from the vet area. We had to take saddles off and play games with the scales for 5 minutes. That 5 minutes is valuable time that we could of been taking care of our horses. There was no water or feed at the finish line so we just stood around, taking our saddles off and then back on and then back off again.

When we were finally done re-inventing the weigh in procedure we headed for the vet. Horses grabbed a very quick drink and out time was up. Again, being first in line has a disadvantage in this case is that all riders behind you have the benefit of being having to wait, their horses will more then likely have a better CRI then the first place horse, with was MONK.

Two of the front four horses were pulled for lameness. I understood that they had come a very long distance for the one star FEI ride, somewhere like Colorado.

After our showing for BC and our completion Lindsay walked MONK back to camp. Eric and I put all of the crewing stuff in the back of the truck and headed back.

Ride time was just short of 5 hours, which is not really that fast for a very flat 50. I do understand that it was a real 50 though.

Lindsay and I iced and wrapped MONKS legs before they headed home. I had decided to stay the night and leave in the morning.

MONK looked great in the morning. I pulled his wraps and took him for a walk. We went over the the vet area at about 7am to pick up Lindsay's completion T shirt and to see how we did on the BC score and to pick up his pass port. I was very disappointed that MONK did not get BC as he did get all A's except one B, BC went to the 2nd place rider, who I understand has a very talented horse. So, they were apparently out of the top ten bucket so I grabbed Lindsay's T-shirt and left.

A short 10 hours and MONK was home, he jumped out the trailer and immediately started eating grass. Where I live they can just hang out, as long as one is in the paddock nobody runs off.

On Firday morning I had a short meeting with Garrett Ford, owner of EasyCare Inc. the providers of the Glove and Glue on Easy Boots. I showed him the Goober Glue inside some used boots and told him about how well it worked and how I was using it. He seemed very interested. I will have product next week so will be looking for a few more testers.

Posted by Chris Martin at 7:10 PM

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