WOOHOO, we finished 2nd and WHAT a ride we had at the Cinders Nighttime Event, we rode hard but with intentionality, strategy, and focus and it was exhilarating.
For those who might read this but aren’t riders, there’s a LOT that goes into a fast finish. In our sport, you ride some rides, and “To Finish is to win” which is our organization’s motto, but sometimes, you ride to “place” and the difference in these two approaches is speed and intentionality. I usually ride to finish and if I place Top 10, I do so thru attrition but as Aileen and I and Leonard sat around and discussed our ride strategy, we thought, hmmm, our horses are fit and we know this trail probably as well as anyone, so someone said, “let’s just go for it” or something like that and so the plan was hatched and I’m thinking aw heck what can go wrong?
For those who aren’t endurance riders, this is the kind of ride that can get pretty exciting especially when you add in more speed and night time riding, so I’ll set the stage with a pic of Sandman when I first got him and now and then my one video post from the ride, which in a nutshell captures a moment and brings to mind the lyric from Simon and Garfunkel’s 1966 #1 hit song, Sound of Silence, “HELLO DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND, I’VE COME TO TALK WITH YOU AGAIN” , as the temps dropped, the wind stilled, and the light receded, we trotted into the black ink.
Sandman has become a great night riding partner, and for me, I’m comfortable in the dark with him but for some riders this is a very scary skill to perfect because you can’t see (but the horse can) and instead of steering your horse as you automatically do during the day, at night, you need to drop the reins and trust your horse in the dark while trotting along on pace, and just know that he knows where to place his feet and pick the trail.
It’s both scary and liberating but always exhilarating to let go and because I’ve been trying to put Sandman into “skill” rides now, instead of just pounding away at the miles, I’m working on specific experiences or skills that he needs to master in order to complete the longer 100 mile rides and along the way, instill in him (and myself) the bravery and confidence as well that we will need to complete a 24 hour ride like Tevis and so night riding is one of those important skills we really need to perfect
With all of this in mind, and because we had discussed “going for it”, we rode out of the start at 5 pm, up front and with the leaders, in 6th, 7th, and 8th position with only 17 night riders in total. Within a mile, we were doing our 10-mph trot/canter riding with Aileen on Lit’l Dude and Leonard on Rocky and Sandman and I, and we were cruising and pretty quickly came up on two very experienced riders (who were conserving their horses having ridden a ride earlier in the day) and we asked for trail on the left and they politely conceded and we blew on by with a smile and a head nod. I’m sure they were probably thinking we were very possibly going to pay a high price for our early fast pace, and they probably would have been right, had we not had a “plan”. In a nutshell, we planned to come out in the front, ride hard, find a bubble and hold the bubble and pace as best we could with the heart rate monitors as our barometer to modulate our speed.
In another two miles or so, we came up on the horses who were in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd position, and at the point, we were on a narrow dusty trail and we politely sat in the back of this grouping for a while eating major dust as all six of us trotted along. At some point, on a winding uphill climb, we were slow trotting the climb into the trees and we could see there was some commotion up ahead and a bunch of dust.
For some reason the lead horse with a very experienced rider on board got somehow pointed slightly downhill or sideways and the other horse was stopped on the trail as well but sideways while the third rider who was now just ahead of us was coming up on those two and it quickly became apparent that we were all going to get jammed up right there if we didn’t maintain our speed and pass, so I heard Aileen who was in back and could see the pending melee I guess, yelled from in back, “pass em”, so as we came up on this situation, we slowed a bit and and asked for trail on the left again (which would force us into the trees a bit) and they politely smiled as we moved off the trail a few feet and passed in some slippery deep leaf litter and cinders.
Rocky and Leonard who were leading our crew at this point maneuvered around the three now stopped riders fine, but Sandman lost his traction for a second in the loose footing but then quickly dug in deep and found solid ground and humped back up and past the three riders with Aileen and Lit’l Dude right behind us. This all happened in literally seconds as we all three managed our horses thru that loose stuff pretty good riders we all made some good decisions and it sounds wild when in reality on a scale of 1-10 this was about an endurance riding 4, and it isn’t that uncommon to calmly ride thru and maneuver in and out of some commotion, slowing down always helps and we dropped down from the fast trot to a slow trot as we moved thru the slippery footing on the left.
At this point, we had cleared the field and we were now in our own little bubble in 1st, 2nd and 3rd and we were moving out at 8-10 mph as we maneuvering around rocks, roots, and obstacles but staying on pace always, and also as well had cleared all of the climbs for that loop now and we were on the top of the mountain and headed around a loop that was either now flat or slightly downhill with only one more climb to the finish.
From start to finish, the heart rate monitors were our barometer and in looking back it was Rocky’s heart rate monitor that we used to modulate our pace as Leonard would yell out the numbers as we trotted along Aileen wanted to keep him between 120 and 130 but we were usually in around 115 range and that was very good even at this pace. As the numbers went up and down with the pace and terrain we would then slow or speed up or maintain the pace and it worked, Lit’l Dude is the least experienced and fit of the three horses, but Aileen has brought him around over this last year and she was on top of his pulse like a hawk as well and now that he’s fit, he has become a little pounding trot monster endurance horse.
All three horses could handle the pace and moved well together, like little Italian Maserati’s, the horses were firing on all cylinders and just pounding and I mean pounding along as we switched positions leading and following etc., Sandman and Lit’l dude were vying a bit with one another, and I think they could feel the “game face” intentionality and I must say it was pretty impressive and a lot of fun.
To give you some idea of our speed, we finished the first loop in just under 90 minutes and it is just under 12 miles, and we were about 13 minutes ahead of those horse who we had passed earlier. We came into camp and all three horses pulsed down immediately, Rocky and Sandman were in the 40’s and Lit’l Dude was right there with them, and all three were straight A on all criteria, so we were all good on the Vet in.
Our ‘go for it” plan was working 🙂 but we also knew we were racing now, and ya know, sh_t happens when you’re racing and knowing we had some really good riders and horses right on our heels, who wanted to hunt us down, we couldn’t dilly dally.
We now had a 45-minute hold to regroup and because the horses drank a little but not much on the first loop, they all had a wet mash at the hold with electrolytes and they scarfed everything down. I changed out some of Sandman’s gear, checked his SPOT unit and then we all grabbed food and some water for ourselves and with the sun setting on the horizon, we cracked open our green and red glow sticks, hooked up our head lamps and hopped back into the saddle for the second loop in the dark, we were back in the saddle in minutes and ready to start the second loop at 7:14 pm.
In endurance riding, 13 minutes is basically 1-2 miles, so our 13 minute lead to maintain our little bubble was just a 1.5 mile lead over those who were on our heels and so we knew we had to maintain our pace to keep our bubble and our placing, so we took off again pretty quickly with other riders coming out of camp right behind us and only a mile or so back just as the sun was setting.
At one point, we were giving the horses a “blow” after fast trotting a big climb, and we were walking for a bit so I took that video I’ve posted just after we had made the climb. It was an amazing moment and as the sun was setting Sandman put on his brave boy boots and we had a blast riding out front in the quiet as the sun dropped off the horizon.
For Sandman and I, “the darkness is our friend” and I’m actually more comfortable riding him in the dark than I am in the daylight. I just kind of let go and he runs the trail on his own and he even spots the very small trail lights that dangle from the trees to show us every few hundred yards if we are on trail and he rides us right to them if he is leading. He is very very smart and catches on quickly and he does the same thing with the ribbons so now we play a game and he finds ribbons and rides to them.
With about 6 miles left in the second loop we heard in the darkness voices and lights coming up from behind and this time, we were trotting more slowly in the dark and they were moving more quickly and the roles were reversed, they asked us for trail and we let them move on by us and just like that we dropped two slots down and we were now in 3rd, 4th and 5th place.
Interestingly, though we stayed with our game plan of keeping the horses around 8 or 9 mph as our pace and sometimes, things work out…those two riders who just passed us didn’t come out of the hold at camp right behind us but instead they came out even further back so they passed quite a few riders before they caught us, which meant they were riding super fast and knowing that, we thought, we’ll stay with our plan because the finish is not about crossing the line but instead it is about the pulse of your horse when you cross the line, and we were thinking these two horses might cross the line before us but because they are going much faster (as they passed everyone to catch us) we might pulse down more quickly than they will and we will regain our 1st 2nd and 3rd placing.
Endurance is about strategy as well, and as luck would have it, we caught up with them again in about two miles as they were slowing down and one of them who had an experienced 100 mile horse asked if she could get in behind us and ride into the finish behind our horses because she thought her horse might not pulse down, while the other rider stayed ahead of us with her faster pace and with just a mile to go she crossed in 1st place maybe 3 minutes ahead of us with us now crossing in 2nd 3rd and 4th place.
But then as we guessed, she didn’t pulse down and we all three did and we were able to regain our finish placing of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Rocky pulsed in first and then one minute later Sandman with a pulse of 44 and then right after Sandman, Lit’l Dude pulsed in as well.
WOOHOO! The plan worked and the Italian’s (Baca and Spataro) team pulled it off, fun stuff, it was great to ride fast and stay on pace thru the obstacles and the game face difference in intentionality and focus was gladdening to feel and see.
It was just a very fun ride and I think the horses as well liked the speed and focus and enjoyed the ride and their Vet scores were all A’s at the end as further evidence of their fitness and race demeanor.
For those of you who are riding but not doing endurance, I thought you might like this story and see the sport as fun and exciting and take a ride with us sometime. 🙂
In closing, I want to thank the ride management team with Debi Sanger and Lauren S Reap leading the charge they put on a great ride with a LOT of different ride options for teams to choose from for those three days.
I want to take this opportunity to also congratulate the volunteers on a great event and Debra and the ride Vets and the pulse takers who all did an amazing job and especially at night and in the dark with cold and windy conditions they were all smiling and helpful even though they must have been very very tired, and I know the the riders are without exception, grateful for these Vets and their support team and smiling helpful volunteers everywhere you turn.
All up in all, a really great event and so much fun for the riders and horses.
I really enjoyed traveling, camping, and riding with Leonard and Aileen. The Italian team done good this weekend. 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. 🙂