We did our “preride” that afternoon - Karen lent me an old running martingale she had. The idea was, that I could use it at the beginning of the ride, to help rate Provo and stop him:
a) flicking his head up and down and preventing me slowing him down
b) flicking his head up and down and hitting me in the nose
c) flicking his head up and down and flipping drool into my face
Trouble was, as soon as we got to the first creek and Provo put his head down to drink, the rings of the martingale promptly slid down and caught on the buckles on the ends of the reins. Not that he cared too much - he can crank his head that tightly, easy peesy, but the martingale did it three times in quick succession and I could see that I would get bored of that pretty quickly.
Karen said that what she did to prevent that, was tie a knot in the reins at the end, but my green rope reins aren't very long so that wasn't going to work (unless of course, I wanted to spend my life hanging down his neck at every drinking opportunity). So she lent me Rocky's blue rope reins, complete with rommel.
Martingale - GOOOOOOOD. Karen didn't need it any more, so I now have it on long term loan. No smooshed nose. No drool covered face. The bad pony still did some running away without my consent, but that was mostly because I was riding one handed, trying to put the sponge back in it's loops with the other hand. Bad.
Rocky's Blue Rope Reins - BAAAD. I have blisters (for the first time with this horse) all over my right hand.
When the ride started, he trotted out reasonably politely (not sure if this was thanks to the martingale, the grass hay, or the fact that he is “getting it”. I'm hoping mostly the latter). The dirt road was wide enough to accommodate all those horses without too many traffic jams, and I let him trot out a bit, overtaking some of the more extreme horses (get away from those, quick as you can, lest they “contaminate” my well-behaved horse. <snort>).
Predictably, after a mile or so, I started to feel tired. I always get a minor moment of panic at this point, realising that I've still got another 49 miles to go, so you just have to keep faking it, and pushing that thought to the back of your mind (which is why riding with a friend to distract you, especially at the start, is a Good Thing).
This problem, coupled with the necessity of needing at least five hands - two to hold the reins and control the horse, one to hold the rommel and stop it dropping into the water and becoming soggy, and two to unhook and untangle the “very cool à la Julie Suhr sponge string with loops" that Karen had insisted on tying to my sponge (she made it out of binder string. Can you imagine? talk about hopeless) - meant that we spent about 20 minutes at the very first creek and got left behind.
Looking back now, I'm confused. I remember fighting with Provo. I remember unhooking the sponge, and once again (not being blessed with five hands) being unable to loop it back up and reattach it to the saddle. I remember Provo taking advantage of my one-handedness and galloping up a hill after a humorless guy on a pretty grey, and me having to force him off the trail into the trees and turn him backwards, just to stop him, so we could wait for Karen and Victoria to catch up. Provo, like a professional endurance pony (yeah, right), took advantage of this hiatus and peed (at least giving me a chance to get the sponge back on the saddle).
But there's a gap in there somewhere, because at some point, once again, we ended up being left behind, and while I was busy trying to catch up, I felt something heavy and wet against my foot and upon looking down, realised that my sponge was no longer attached to its stupid binder string where Karen had tied it, and was sort of cradled in the loops and about to be lost forever. I cursed and set about trying to retie it to it's string and clip.
At this point, it was still before 8 am, I was shaking from the effort of stopping Provo galloping all over the place/tailgaiting (which, I'm sorry to say, I did let him do at least once behind Bob Suhr, just because I was too tired to fight him just then. Karen told me off (OK, so she was sponsoring two juniors that day) and I made him drop back), and the prospect of having to control him, while juggling the rommel and tie a piece of string back to a sponge was completely beyond me. Pathetic, isn't it?
Of course, predictably, in the process of all this, I dropped the string and its clip and had to get off to retrieve it. Provo ran circles around me, while I faffed with the string, tying tightly enough that I was satisfied that it wasn't going anywhere again. Luckily, a very kind lady I happened to be riding with at the time waited for me patiently while this was going on, until I was able to summon the energy to scramble back on and continue.
I decided to get off and walk for a while, to see if that would de-kink whatever it was that was in there causing problems.
It didn't.
So I got back on again.
And then got off to lengthen my stirrups (which were already a hole too long because I had decided that I was riding with too short a stirrup in the first place, the previous weekend). Provo ran circles around me, as usual, fretting about all the horses that were passing us and how they were winning and he'd be last (how right he was!). I lost my temper with him and whacked him with the rommel (what a good tool <grin>). He paused briefly and then resumed jumping up and down, making it almost impossible to get the stirrups lengthened (these are Sport Saddle stirrup “leathers” that are super-fiddley to adjust and need replacing).
I was starting to feel decidedly frazzled.
We carried on for another few miles. The longer stirrups didn't help my knee at all, but did cause me to ride really badly and jiggle around on top of the horse - making sure that if he wasn't interfering beforehand, he started to do so then. Victoria's horse, Lady, would leap up in the air every time we got anywhere near her, which resulted in a very uneven pace and wobbled me about on top of Provo even worse. I was getting to the miserable stage.
We went past the ride photographer. Karen said we should spread out, so that we could get individual pictures, so we did, cantering along at a decent spacing, and I even smiled and pretended I was having a really fun time. Of course, of the 180 riders, the photographer only missed taking a picture of one rider, as far as I can work out. Can you guess who?
Apparently, he might not have run out of film, had he not taken five shots of Victoria. Karen got a nice one of her and Weaver, though. Just try to imagine I'm in the pic, OK? I'm the one in the green tights with the white pony.
Provo vetted through absolutely fine, although he had some pretty nice interference marks on his normal two fetlocks (left-front, right rear) from my wobbling around. I'd tried to put tall interference boots on his front legs, but all they do is strip the hair off his legs, making them look completely battered, so I was trying to limit their use as much as possible. Later on the ride, I met a lady who was using the short back boots on the front legs, so that's what I've started to do now, and they work very well (seeing as he only batters the bottom part of his fetlock).
I was also pleased with his new shoeing job. A few days before, we'd
changed him onto Natural Balance Shoes, with short, square, stubby toes.
From the little I managed to see, at trotting, this has helped him stride
out better, and he seems to be more able to maintain "big trot" for longer
than he used to be able.
Predictably, I never got around to writing the second half of this ride - and it always bugged me, because it was actually quite a good experience. One day, I'll finish the story - about how Provo and I got in a big fight at around 45 miles and ended up in a "You do it my way [walking] or we don't finish the ride" ultimatum. He finally gave in and was an angel for the rest of the ride. We finished in about 11 hours and I was very proud.