WOW, just WOW, no other way to describe what a great ride weekend Mr. Sandman and I had doing the 50 mile Lead Follow Bumble Bee Ranch event.
This is a beautiful and historic working cattle ranch north of Phoenix that doubles as an event facility and for those who’d like to visit, Google the ranch, and do a tour, it’s very nice and close by as well.
For those who are following Sandman’s training but who aren’t endurance riders, this ranch has really rocky trails and a lot of deep sand washes with a lot of flowing water crossings as well and for these reasons, it’s superb for training and exposing the horses to a whole host of obstacles that they need to learn to overcome.
I was riding with my good friend Lancette and her very able granddaughter Hailey both of whom are strong riders and their likewise amazingly fit horses Jantar and Mesa Dancer. We had a lot of fun riding together and we all paced well and after an initial settling in, time just flew by and then before you knew it, after riding 50 miles, we crossed the finish line in 7th place. Woohoo!!
Sandman trotted in with a pulse of 52 and for those who’ve been following his progress, he had straight A’s on his final VET card with a B+ for skin tenting and impulsion, which is understandable given the climbing we did and the tough terrain but very high scores overall, all things considered.
In terms of his performance on the trail, we had two main goals for this ride, first of which was to come out of the start in a calm loose rein manner and then slowly transition to a comfortable trot, and with that goal in mind, mission accomplished.
This is the 4th ride now, where he came out at the start head down, and calm, even though we had to thread the needle of a grouping of obstacles that included a lot of unfamiliar parked farm equipment and a pen of large inquisitive goats across from a pen of likewise friendly horses who when put right next to one another formed a gauntlet right at the start that we rode thru with the goats on one side and horses on the others side, both leaning across the fence as we rode past forcing the horses to the middle while nervously eyeing both the goats and horses as we rode by, all of this was great learning for Sandman and then we had cattle all along the trail which he has now mastered and doesn’t bat an eye, so this was start to finish, a great learning exercise for him and he did well on both.
The second goal was to learn to cross water without hesitating and he became a master at this during this ride, as we were forced to ford quite a few deeper fast moving water crossings and he did great and eventually wanted to stop and just play in the water or maybe even roll which I wasn’t having any part of and now water is his friend. 
On the downside, we did loose boots a lot on this ride and Sandman has rarely thrown a boot and only once before in a race. But on this ride, we lost boots 3X and again, it’s great training to have him stand in a chaotic situation with other horses milling around him or passing him while I dismount on a steep cramped mountainside and put his boot back on. His first boot came off on a scrambling climb just after crossing water, so it’s understandable, but we need more work here and maybe look at different boots going forward, all solvable issues. This is the ride where our boots go to die, I just made that up and BIG thanks to Lancette and Hailey for the extra boots.
This is a signature event for our ride region, the ride camp is incredible with a lot of bells and whistles, bathrooms and showers for the people and ample water to wash the horses, a restaurant and bar pavilion, with great parking and a lot of room to spread out the various trucks and trailers, the staff on the ranch are very professional and always smiling and accommodating and all of this is nestled down in this beautiful verdant green valley with wild flowers everywhere and a stream flowing thru which is quite unusual for our Arizona rides.
I want to take this opportunity to thank Stephanie and her team (Barb, Taylor, Pete) , and congratulate them and the volunteers on another great event. They all do an amazing job and the rides are without exception, fun, safe, fully staffed with the best Vets Dr. Houser, Dr Anderson, and Max Schmidt and their Vet support team and smiling helpful volunteers everywhere you turn. Their attention to detail and diligence is second to none and the trails are all well marked and synced well with the Ride With GPS trail marking software, showing all of the many twists and turns over 50 miles. All up in all, a really great event and so much fun for the riders and horses.
In closing, I really enjoyed camping with Ashley, Susie, and Brad, the smiles, jokes, and laughter as always were constant and then we also again, to a rider, without exception, really appreciate the hard work of the ride management team and the amazing photography from Linda Sherrill as well to top it off. Lori (who stayed home to care for Shadow, Masquerade, and Diamond) and I are so proud of Sandman and the ride partner he is becoming. Just a really nice weekend, enjoy the ride, this was a great one.