Our Crew: Tom
Intro and Executive Summary
Several weeks ago, Trisha, Judy, Debbie and I decided to ride the Derby Ditch 50 mile endurance race on our horses. Derby Ditch has been held in Fernley, Nevada annually for the last 32 years. The course is relatively flat, for those of us from the Coastal Hill Country, but the footing, which was generally rocky soil pocked with 20 yard wide sand traps, more than made up for the flatness of it. And actually, the flatness was deceptive, too: although there was only about 2300 feet of climbing total in the ride, there was only 740 feet in the first 37 miles, and the last four miles were flat, so 1500 feet of climbing were compressed into miles 38 through 46 - a pretty steep average gradient for that point in the race.
Other issues that made it difficult were the wind, which I'd guess averaged 20 mph with gusts to 40 mph, and the general low humidity (I know, I know - it's the DESERT, stupid!) that really leached the water out of both horse and rider. Although I thought the conditions were hard on us, they weren't unexpected; we read the weather forecasts. However, Fernley *is* in the high desert and the ride *is* held in a transitional season, so things could actually have gotten much worse - see the bottom photo on this page.
Finally, the first vet check was at 14 miles and the next one was at 37 miles. There were two opportunities for water in between, but no extended rests and no opportunity for the crews to get to the teams with food - at least no opportunity for us out-of-towners. In any case, I heard, but did not verify, that 90 horse/person teams started and 35 teams got pulled for whatever reason, so it must have been a little tough.
This is the story of our ride.
Chapter One in Which We Plan
This was my first endurance ride, and I'm pretty scatter-brained anyway, so I made lists of things to bring and ran them by Trisha, Judy and Debbie, all of whom are experienced endurance riders. Here is my list. In addition of things to take, there are also things to do: if you're going to take horses out of state, they have to have Coggins tests, and you have to carry a certificate to that effect. In addition, you have to have certified weed-free hay to get into Nevada, so we had to find that. Fortunately, Trisha located a source for it in Gilroy(!!) and picked it up for us all.
The rest of the plan was that Debbie and I would go up late on Thursday and meet the gang in Auburn, where we would spend the night, then we'd all head up to Fernley. Our plan worked and we found Ali and Cody and Tom and Judy's very impressive rig in the horse parking lot in Auburn.
Chapter Two in Which We Arrive and Set Up Camp
I don't know how it happened, but everybody got there before Debbie and Cal (her horse) and I did. By the time we got there, everybody was settled in: Nabi, Trisha and Tony, Tom, Maggie(T & T's Senior Dog), Cody (Judy's horse) and Ali (my horse). Not to worry though, Cal rose to the occasion and made up for lost time.
After we settled in, we took the horses to the arena to stretch. Debbie actually made Cal walk around and follow instructions, while Cody and Judy looked on with mild interest. They got more intrigued when Debbie decided to inspect Cal's . . . equipment. We all politely ignored them for awhile, but finally Cody had to tell Cal what he thought of a guy who'd allow handling like that in public!
After we stretched them out, we took a short ride, then came back, pulled the horses' tack and took them to the initial vet check, where they determine if the horse is healthy enough to start and sort of establish a baseline for various factors. The factors are gut sounds, attitude (willingness to move based on the owner leading the horse at a trot), hydration, capilary recovery and maybe something else. All our horses passed, although Al got a "B" on gut sounds, which Judy said was pretty typical for her because she gets nervous before a ride and doesn't eat. Thanks to all the people at the barn who helped Al practice her capillary recovery - she behaved generally beautifully. Also, it was a big social ocasion, with lots of visiting and catching up.
After we got checked out, I walked back out of the camp - I had lost a glove on our ride and wanted to find it since it was shaping up to be cold. As I returned, I remembered how the desert can be so pretty - it's the light! Even our somewhat grim campsite looked great. By the way, that's Trisha and Tony's sun canopy, and Debbie's truck in the picture. You can see from Tony's garb and posture that it was getting cold. The last picture demonstrates conclusively to all doubters that, yes, the sun *does* set on Ali's butt! And it rises there, too, so don't ask.
We all went to bed relatively early (after I took a shower in Tom and Judy's camper - thanks!). I thought it was going to be hard to sleep because of excitement, the horse noises and the semi-constant trains, but the wind on my tent provided soothing white noise, and I fell asleep in no time.
Chapter Three in which We Ride
The pictures are few and far between here. We got up at 5:00 AM to get ready, mostly tack up and electrolyte the hyped up horses. The way the start worked was that we had to leave the camp by 6:30 to ride on city streets down to the official start on the levee at 7:00. We timed it about perfectly, by my lights, and got to the start near the back of the back and took off directly. I glued Ali to Cody's rear end - she wasn't allowed to see anything else - so all I saw was the view of the picture on the left: sky around Judy's jacket. Point of interest: if you look hard, you can see that the jacket is for a top five finish in an endurance race; the horse she was riding when she won the jacket was Ali. Whoo Hoo!
The first about 10 miles of the race were on the levee - about 5 yards wide with 90 excited horses on it. It was just as intimidating as hell, I can tell you. Judy and Debbie took care of me, though: when the going got too tough, they'd ride side by side, forming a two horse wide blockade that Ali would have to crash through to run off and win as she wanted to.
It took us about an hour and a half to get to the first vet check at 14 miles. When you get to a vet check you have to "P and R", that is your horse's pulse and respiration levels have to meet certain criteria, in this case 60 bpm for pulse and 17 breaths per minute for respiration. Ali, of course, stayed fired up because she couldn't go forward, so it took her several minutes at the stop before she could pass the check. At that point, you get a time. You can leave the stop no earlier than 15 minutes after the time you passed your P & R. While you're waiting you get a vet check, which covers exactly the same ground as the intial one.
Cody, Cal and Nabi had all passed their P & R checks instantly, so Nabi and Cal were through the vet check line by the time I got there, and Cody had just started. The vet had checked everything but attitude (movement) and Judy trotted him out just as I got there. She got about 15 feet out and said "He's off, isn't he?" The vet agreed, and that was that for Cody. And, man, was he pissed!!! And he stayed mad until this very day. Anyhow. Debbie graciously offered to ride with me, even though I was pretty clear about my lack of speed and lack of skill, so off we went. Instead of seeing Judy's jacket with Al's Big Win on it, I saw Debbie's red windbreaker for the rest of the ride.
I have to say that this part of the ride went on FOREVER. At one point, Debbie said "I have NO idea where we are, we could be on the moon!" But we were able to resolve that issue by looking left, as in the left photo above: my guess is that we were about 3 linear miles from City Hall for Hell. Just LOOK at those pictures. Yes, we rode straight down that dirt road, with no deviations, very few turns and no elevation change. You can just see some trucks parked in the mid-ground of the picture. They belonged to local crews who knew their teams would need water. One of them gave Ali and Cal drinks; good thing, too, because they weren't leaving without a drink!
Lunch was at mile 37 and the last 6 or 7 miles in were tough. Cal and Ali were both getting really dry and cranky. We had to cross two railroad tracks and it wasn't clear to me that Cal was going to make it, it just seemed like too big a jump for him. Debbie finally talked him into it by getting off and leading him, but we were all tapped out by the time we got to lunch.
Judy, Tom and Cody met us at lunch and, boy, was I happy to see them! They did all the work with the horses, coached me through the vet check and got our (Debbie and my) lunch. Debbie and Cal just relaxed and Al sampled the Nevada all-you can-eat buffets: "Just a little rice bran, Tom. Well, okay, perhaps just a swallow more. There's some left? Oh look, alfalfa!"
As you can see, Tom and Judy brought the camper to lunch and all I did was sit on my posterior and watch Tom and Judy take care of my horse. It was wonderful. Notice what rice bran does for Ali's nose in the picture where Tom is feeding her a carrot.
After lunch, we hit the road again. Trisha saved Team Big Al's bacon on this leg: just after we started up the first hill she noticed that Al had a stone in her shoe. When we stopped to get it out, Trisha was also the only one with a hoof pick. In my own defence, I carry one on my saddle, but I had switched to Judy's saddle which I hoped would give a little more support to my wilted celery legs and hadn't swapped across my "tool bag". Oh well, live and learn.
I was tired of looking ahead, so I took pictures behind. Trisha was always just behind us somewhere. We would speed up and slow down and she and Nabi kept a constant pace, so they would recede then approach all through the last 13 miles. You can see how desolate the terrain was.
We finally came to the official finish - it was at the water tower you can see over Trisha's shoulder in the third picture. HOWEVER, we still had 3 miles to go. The official finish had to be before camp because Fernley didn't want us racing on their city streets. This is understandable, but really demoralizing. We finally made it in at 3:30 - 9 hours total, about 6 and a half actually riding the race. It was a long, long day.
After we got back, we settled the horses down where they all looked like they had a good workout.
Chapter Four in Which We Return Home
After the ride, Debbie and I and Tom and Judy packed our stuff up and went as far toward home as Auburn. I couldn't believe that Tom and Debbie, the drivers, could hold their eyes opened. In a spirit of solidarity, I tried to stay awake with Debbie, but didn't make it. We set up camp in record time, blew off dinner and went to bed.
When we got up, Tom and the dogs were already on patrol, and all the horses looked very good. We loaded up and headed for home. We all arrived safely and the horses are recovering well. I hurt over about every inch of my body, with special pain in my quads, particularly when going down stairs, but it was worth it to see what endurance riding is about.
