Club Stuff

Musings from Karin   

Happy April everyone and welcome to Spring!  Isn’t this the best time of year?  Nothing compares to lush meadows dotted with poppies, lupine and purple dick.  It takes your breath away.  The foothills are beautiful and creeks and rivers are pouring downhill with crisp, clear water.  Yes, the mud is there too, but there are trails to ride without all the slop.  The Quarry Road has great footing and Coffer Dam is open on Sundays.  The views are spectacular, the trail is secure and on the way down from Maidu to Rattlesnake is a phenomenal sight… Knickerbocker Falls.  

Get out and enjoy!  

By the way, a group of riders will be camping at Pt. Reyes the weekend of May 13^th and 14^th.  This is NOT a Gold Country sponsored event, but information that I thought some would be interested in knowing.

Karin Occhialini

Club Stuff

Jon Saunders will be purging the roster of non-payees after this month. 
Please get your dues in to avoid being "dropped".

Club Dues:

• Dues for 2005:  Single = $15   Family = $25
• Jon Saunders will collect at the meeting, 
  or they can be mailed to the club PO box: 
  P.O. Box 3412
  Auburn, CA 95604.  

Stories

Why Endurance Riding is Like Child Birth
Dionne Wallace

(Dionne apologizes for her run-on sentences and any other grammatical errors, but she gets a gold star from me for going to a ride this weekend *and* managing to write about it. Give this girl a round of applause. Lucy)

OK, not sure if anyone else shares this feeling AND since I am not an expert on EITHER subject given I have never had a child and am new to endurance but I was thinking on the drive home from High Desert early Sunday morning how similar endurance riding and child birth are. 

I have heard that mothers seem to forget the pain of labor shortly after giving birth to their child. My guess is this is nature's inherent way to protect the continued procreation of the human race. My sister swore she was never going to have another baby about an hour after the labor of her first child. She said that child birth was the most painful process she had ever experienced. She questioned how anyone had more than one child. How could they go through this painful process of labor more than once? A year later when she was pregnant with her second child she said that the birth of her first child wasn't so bad. WOW! How could she forget the pain of the first labor? I sure remember our conversation from a year ago but given she was already pregnant with the second, I didn't feel the need to remind her how she felt directly after her first labor. As it was inevitable she was going to have to go through it again, there was no sense in reminding her as she was going to remember soon enough. 

Around mile 25 of High Desert when I realized that I really did have a cold and not just allergies, I was tired, achy and hungry. I felt like curling up on the side of the trail and taking a nap in the warm sun. The last thing I felt like doing was riding another 25 miles, posting mile after mile, having all my internal organs jostling about in my body. I was thinking to myself: how in the hell am I going to do THREE days at Wild West when I am ready for a nap at mile 25!? I had a running conversation with myself questioning; "Why do I want to do this sport? Why do I put myself through this? How is this fun? No one is making me do this. I use my vacation days to do this. This is my idea of a vacation? Am I crazy? OK! no more endurance rides. This is it! After this ride, for sure, no more endurance rides! Done deal!" Externally I of course was cheerful and exuberant. This is, after all, the sport of No Whiners.

My next train of thought around mile 45 was "I only have 5 more miles to go, this isn't too bad." 

OK my new plan is that I will only ride the rides that I had mentally committed to doing this year; Wild West, Fireworks and the Patriot Day ride. I can't back out on these rides. When I say I am going to do something, I do it! But after these, no more! Oh boy, here I go. The "forgetting process" is already happening and I haven't even finished the ride. 

Driving over Donner Summit on Sunday morning I was already contemplating if I should try to squeeze one more endurance ride in before Wild West. One more, good idea! One more will *really* prepare us for our first three day ride. It was at this point when I decided that endurance riding was like child birth, you forget the "pain" of the ride very soon after the ride which I guess is nature's inherent way to protect the continued procreation of the "endurance" race :-)

Dionne Wallace

Whiskeytown Chaser
Dorothy Foster

(Another gold star goes to Dorothy)

I just got back from the LD ride at the Whiskeytown Chaser. What a gorgeous day and beautiful scenery! I was riding a new horse that hadn't had much conditioning (and I'm 65 and totally out of condition myself) so I was really glad we signed up for the 25 and not the 50. 

I left right after I finished the ride so I have no idea who won or got BC, but whoever it was had to have been made of sterner stuff than I. The first loop of the 25 - which the 50 milers had to do twice - included about a 5 mile climb on the worst road I have ever ridden. Large portions had recently been covered with blasted granite rocks 1 to 3 inches in diameter ... Talk about a stone bruise waiting to happen! 

Then the 50 milers had to climb the infamous Kanaka. After looking at the peak from the bottom and getting a crick in my neck, I realized how lucky I was to make the decision to do the LD. 

My mare did very well and finally learned to cross water willingly (it was either that or quit after a few hundred yards: there was water everywhere,) but she would never have finished the 50, even without her rider who would have fainted from exhaustion long before descending that Kanaka trail! 

Everything else about the ride was wonderful except the parking situation which was woefully inadequate. The vets were fast and efficient, management provided a lunch as well as dinner, the trail was very well-marked and the award was a long-sleeved shirt with a very nice logo. The other awards looked beautiful too. All in all a very tough, but well-run, beautiful ride...just be prepared to wait until all your neighbors finish before you can leave - and no-one finishes this ride fast! 

Dorothy Foster

Ride & Tie Is Going to Be Fun, Right?...
(Part 2)
Lucy Chaplin Trumbull

Last month saw our intrepid adventurers poised on the eve of their first Ride and Tie practice. Predictably, this didn't go smoothly. In a fit of being even-more-late-than-usual, we didn't get to the venue until 45 minutes after we were supposed to, so all the R&Ters* were already out there, rushing about in the woods.

Not deterred by this, we set out on foot, dragging the reluctant Mouse behind us and jigged the first half mile to the creek. Astonishingly at this point, we actually met up with Cheryl Domnitch ("person in charge") and Dionne Wallace ("horse babysitter"). Out of the goodness of their hearts, despite wanting to go on back to the trailers, they stayed out there with us and did a couple of loops to get us into the swing of things.

Cheryl gave me a quick lesson in what to tie to/what not to tie to/which trees to pick. I was eyeing the trees as far off the trail as possible, ever mindful of Zini's flightly back feet, while Cheryl was wisely assuring me that the closer to the trail the horse was tied, the less likely we runners were to completely miss her  and run on by.

Since that day, I've pondered this subject every single time I've run. As mentioned in last month's installment, I don't even particularly like running, so the prospect of blithely jogging past R&T-Horse-of-Choice (craftily disguised as a tree) and continuing to run on unawares for several miles fills me with dread and anxiety.

THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN.

Ok, so it probably will happen.

One plan I came up with, was to run with a bag of horse goodies. Mouse is notoriously greedy and very vocal in her demands for food. My cunning plan was that every time she saw one of us approaching (armed with our goody bag), she would trumpet her joy and greet us noisily. 

More likely she'd hide behind the tree.

The main flaw with any plan containing Mouse was that, during the practice, she was again so appallingly bad that partner Gail decided it was safer not to get on her (especially as we'd forgotten Gail's helmet back at the trailer). Mouse's career as R&T-Horse-of-Choice is not progressing as I'd hoped.

We did get to tie her to a few trees, briefly, while I stood by and admired her being tethered. And we did get to meet some travelling pack-llamas (difficult to say who was more alarmed, the llama or the horses... The llama was young and his eyes were very big as he submitted to being sniffed by Mouse and Dionne's Peter).

Mostly we just ran with her, dragging her along behind us... well dragging her along when we were heading away from the trailers and trying to avoid being trampled by her when we were heading back towards them.

And even more disappointingly, she was also lame at the end, despite having only been ridden one of the five miles we'd gone. Back to the drawing board for her shoeing. I guess Zini is first choice right now.

Whiskeytown R&T has come and gone and I stayed at home. Unfortunately, Gail was otherwise occupied that weekend, so wasn't able to go. Just as well, since Zini had a puffy fetlock the weekend before, and lost a front shoe on Sunday.

Next up is the Quicksilver Pro Am on May 21. Strangely, Gail tells me she can't make this date either. I'm starting to get suspicious. Doesn't she want to ride my cute grey mare?

But alas, I'm starting to see why R&T is such a hard sport to get in to. You don't just have to get yourself and your mount ready and present - you have to organize for two riders to be present, something that is a lot harder than it sounds. 

If anyone would like to join me and Mouse Zini Mouse Zini at Quicksilver on 21 May and be the second member of the slowest team out there, please drop me a line. 

(*Cheryl was thrilled that she had almost more R&T teams at Empire Mine that day than during the Gold Country R&T event. She is hoping to organize another practice event soon)

Equine Emergency Symposium

The Student Chapter of the American Association of Equine Practitioners at the University of California Davis presents its 

“Equine Emergency Symposium” 
on Saturday May 14th.

The day-long event will feature noted UC Davis faculty speaking in the morning and various participant “labs” and demonstrations in the afternoon.

Speakers will emphasize what to do before your veterinarian arrives in such case as fractures, lacerations, poisoning and colic.

In the afternoon, participants will try their hand at bandaging, see proper splint placement and “down horse” rescue as well as collect and take home the components of a well stocked first aid kit.

Attendance will be limited to the first 200 registered participants!

For registration information or a flyer detailing the activities of the day, please email: ucdavisequinemedicineclub@yahoo.com.

Divide Horsemen's Association are hosting:

Saturday, April 23rd
Vaccination Clinic & Tack Swap Meet 
at Bayley Barn in Pilot Hill

Vaccination Clinic
Appointments available from 8:00am - 11:00am. Call Julie at 530-885-9019
Vet: Dr. Jacobs from Loomis Basin Veterinary Clinic
Vaccinations offered & cost:

• West Nile Virus: $28
• Rabies: $17
• 4-Way: donated by Fort Dodge - $6 injection fee
• Rig charge: $10 DHA members & $15 non-members

Tack Swap Meet

• 11:00am - 3:00pm
• Open to community
• Seller space available - call Paula Anderson at 530-823-9996
• Seller table cost: $10 DHA member & $15 for non-member

Nearly new tack can be donated to DHA, proceeds will be used for 
construction of initial staging area at Cronin Ranch

BBQ lunch can be purchased

If you have any questions, please let me know. 
Ann Nonemaker
Divide Horsemen's Association, Communications Director
530-333-1415

The aim is to get the newsletter online on Friday before the meeting.