Well since my endurance motto is, "To Eat Is To Win" this ride was
another huge success and I am still undefeated for dinner. Annie
cooked Friday burgers, Saturday steak, Sunday chicken and each with
all the trimmings and all of it tasted great.

The ride was on a beautiful private ranch with rolling hills, big oak
trees and several creeks. The trails and dirt roads were mostly
excellent footing. There were many permanent cow tanks and extra
water tubs at all the right places and a nice pond next to base camp
that people and horses could get in. The weather was great with clear
skies, slight breezes and only 100 freakin' degrees in the shade at
camp all 3 days. My horse has never been so clean after 100 miles of
sweaty dusty trail because of all that sponging at all those water stops.

The nice thing about riding in real heat is I got to practice using a
much debated theory that states "Walk in the shade and trot in the
sun (but not up a steep uphill)" and I think it made a difference.
Out of over 100 horses mine was one of only 14 that completed both
days. There was far more sun than shade so we did walk and I tailed
some in the sun which was like a furnace on the white sandy roads but
since there was so much water I could refill my 2 bottles at every
stop and then every time we hit shade I would wet his ears and neck
and my shirt and we both cooled down nicely making the most of the shade.

My Marquis Performance Glueon boots were just like having nailed on
steel shoes except no nail holes and no concussion from the steel and
no possibility of a stone bruise because there is a half inch of
rubber protecting the sole and frog. The horse stood in 4 creeks each
day for 10-15 minutes each creek. The front boots got soaked from
sponging at least 15 times each day and I rode the horse in the pond
for 15 minutes at the end of day 1. Many times I took off trotting
right out of the water, something I almost never did with strapon
boots because the wet sand and dirt would usually rub the horse raw
and the possibility of throwing or twisting a boot was much greater
when the boots were wet. With these MPGo boots I have none of those
worries anymore, in fact I never even bother to look down anymore, I
can just ride. The boots were glued on last Thursday and I removed
them today, that's 7 days and they were still on very solid and I am
sure they would have been fine for another 50 today. So now my horse
is barefoot until I can afford to do another endurance ride and I do
not have to worry about scheduling the farrier because I can now do
everything myself just when I need it.

Here is the link for my GPS track from day 1
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/5721750

On day 2 my GPS (overheated?) somehow lost its lock on elevations for
about a mile and recorded elevations of 98,422 ft. Everything else
recorded correctly but that huge elevation number screwed up the
profile plot in Motionbased so I deleted it. Day 2 was basically just
the reverse of day 1 except it had about 1000 feet less elevation gain.

Don Huston
donhuston @ cox.net
SanDiego, Calif

Don Huston
donhuston @ cox.net
SanDiego, Calif