"So You Think You Can Ride" Extreme Trail Challenge

I took Cayenne to this challenge at Farragut State Park in Athol, Idaho and it was much different than anticipated! It was supposed to be 10 miles with "natural" judged obstacles. It ended up being a 10 mile trail ride. The Extreme Division started with three obstacles at the camp site: Push a big ball in a circle with your horse, pull a bucket of cards up using a rope pulley and take two cards out, and cross a little stream with pinwheels alongside and floating balls, etc in it. I finally rode out at noon after being on my horse since 9am waiting. The trails were simple and good but not flagged well. Organizers later said that some of the flags were apparently removed by other park users. I trotted and loped 2-3 miles in the beginning with a couple double backs to get on the correct trail. I had completed probably half of the course and still not seen any judges or obstacles so was pretty worried I had gone off course or somehow missed a judge. I met up with another gal on the trail and she hadn't seen any either so at least we were in the same boat! We finally met a lady on an Arab who had already finished the course and was coming back to look for her mother. She told us that there were no obstacles but we had to stay on the flagged trail because we were being timed. We got back to camp somewhere between 2pm and 2:30pm and there were several trailers gone or pulling out because they were upset about paying to go on a trail ride! Rumor had it that the times were being thrown out because of the unmarked trails and that the organizers were going to set up a judged obstacle course near the BBQ area. Rumor also had it that there were no judged obstacles on the trail because the volunteer judges hadn't shown up. It would have been nice if they had reorganized due to that fact and gave us the option to go for a trail ride while they set up a course at camp. There would not have been so many confused riders out in the woods that way!

I tied Cayenne to the trailer, gave her some water and ate my lunch before heading over for the rest of the course. It ended up being several hours until the competition wrapped up. They did tally the scores quickly once the last rider was done. They immediately handed out lots of prizes and I pulled out of the park around 7:30pm. I definitely missed my dinner date with family in Chewelah at 6:30pm! Cayenne and I took 4th place in the Extreme Division. I am quite pleased with that.

Cayenne did pretty well on most of the obstacles although the two she didn't like, she did poorly at! The little "stream" in the beginning with all the miniature soccer balls and stuff in it was very suspicious in her mind. I let her check it out for way too long to be competitive and then I had to urge her over. She jumped it somewhat gently but I would have preferred she put a foot in the 12-18" stream. One of the evening obstacles was a 1/2 barrel full of water with slingshots and little balls in it. She didn't care to stand close enough for me to lean way down and get them so I grabbed a fish net (from another obstacle) and dipped the stuff out. She wiggled around a lot through that process while eyeballing the barrel but did stand still enough for me to drop the reins and use the slingshot to shoot a ball at the target. I'm not sure if the horse or the rider was judged on that one! She did excellent on the rest of the obstacles. She had no problem with pushing the ball or letting me raise the red bucket up next to her in the first obstacles. The evening obstacles included three barrels in a line with a board resting on two. You had to pick up the end of the board and move around forward to rotate your end 180 degrees and set it on the other barrel. In the Extreme, you then had to pick the end back up and back your horse up to place the end back on the original barrel. The next obstacle was picking up a plastic horseshoe and tossing it toward a spike. Again, I'm not sure who was judged on this because I didn't come close to getting a ringer! The slingshot obstacle previously described was next. After that, I used the fish net to scoop a water balloon out of another barrel and then tossed it into a little bucket a short ways off. Amazingly enough, I got the balloon in the bucket! The last obstacle was picking up a blue tarp off the ground (it was "tented" so you could reach it by leaning down) and carrying it through a "cowboy curtain" or "carwash," which is hanging tarp strips you push through. She did very well on the tarp/curtain obstacle as well as the rest.

We placed behind three very good horse/rider combinations. Jinny Dean on her mare, Jewel, was 3rd. Anne-Marie, on her 28yr old Arab stallion, was 2nd. A nice lady whose name I didn't catch won on her black horse. Unfortunately, I didn't see her ride so I must have missed watching a great team! I saw Jinny and Anne-Marie ride and they were very good. I figure it's quite a compliment to place right below a rider I admire such as Jinny!

I am considering returning to Farragut for a competition on the 29th, put on by a different group, but am not sure. I'm a little burnt out on the long days put in at the previous competitions at Farragut! I don't mind long rides by any means but I get geared up to compete and want to be challenged! I like that several groups are putting on trail competitions within a couple hours but would also like to see them ran more efficiently. The Farragut trail challenge that I rode in two weeks ago has many disgruntled riders because many of them, including me, were missing scores. The judges either didn't write them down, they got washed off in the rain, or the person putting them in the computer forgot them. Cayenne and I had excellent scores but two blanks. I don't care about the prize money or awards but I want to know how I did and where my horse and I really stacked up against the competition. One good thing about having so much "hurry up and wait" time is that I get to chat with lots of different people. Most people at trail competitions are friendly and it's nice to get to know them. There were quite a few people from out of state including a group of 20-somethings from Helena, MT. They were quite entertaining as they were drinking beer before we even did the first obstacles in the morning! One guy had a set of big saddle bags on his mare that were actually insulated coolers! By the time evening rolled around the Montana guys were really good for a laugh. One guy's hat ended up on the ground while we were waiting and instead of dismounting, he picked it up from his horse. The trouble was, as he was hanging out of the saddle, he was spurring her in the top of her flank! Needless to say, she was jumping around with him hanging off one side trying to get his hat! There were quite a few wrecks waiting to happen with many of the riders but luckily, nobody that I know of got hurt.

Bushwhacking

I re-explored some trails and logging roads up Burnt Valley Road today. I rode Cayenne and did three hours of hill climbing and bushwhacking. I'm glad I wore my chinks as we got into some really heavy brush. My arms are pretty scratched up as I was in short sleeves. Cay was game and we had a good day. I found a big elk wallow and game trail complete with major rubs on the trees. I think I'll try to get the game cam out there in the late summer or fall to see what there are for bull elk going through.

Competitive Trail Challenge at Farragut

Saturday was a fun trail challenge at Farragut State Park near Athol, Idaho. It poured rain pretty much all morning but 58 riders still came to compete! They had a six mile loop flagged with about ten obstacles. Four of those were right by camp so there weren't too many once you hit the trail. I took Cayenne and it turned out to be great experience for her. We competed in the "Extreme" class. She's not extreme but I'm not novice and there was no other option other than youth. I'm certainly not that any more! The trail was the same for everyone but when you were at a judged obstacles, some of them had harder requirements if you were in the extreme class. For example, one obstacle was to walk through a "car wash," hanging tarp strips. If you were in extreme, you also had to back through once you'd went through forwards. Not hard but a little more challenging and fun, which is what it's all about! Cay was a little amped up at first as she was determined that we must go with all the horses ahead. I long trotted her for a couple miles and passed the handful of riders in front when we came upon them in the woods. Once we were out front, she relaxed and we had a great ride by ourselves. The trails were clear and easy to navigate. The rain stopped when we were about halfway through the course. I would have galloped but the organizers had asked that we be safe and keep it to a trot because of all the rain. There were some parts of the trail that were a little slick but much of it was sandy/gravelly so the footing was excellent. I cruised back to camp at 12:15, about two hours after starting. My mistake in that was that I then waited until well after 4pm for the results! Cayenne and I got 6th place in the Extreme Division. I was happy with that because we were up against seasoned horses and riders. It would have been like competing against myself on Smarty or Mr. Definitely not equal! The main thing I need to work on is getting Cayenne to stop and relax so I can do the dismounts, mounts, or other quiet work. She always wants to keep moving. I don't like to stop when I ride alone so I need to practice, too!

The obstacles included: Dismounting, tack inspection, answering questions about what a rider should take on a trail ride, mounting, crossing a weird wooden siding/2x12 board bridge, opening and closing a gate with a tarp on it, going into a ditch, riding along the bottom and then climbing out again, going under a black plastic tunnel-like obstacle, going through and then backing under a "carwash," backing uphill, around a tree and back down to the trail, dragging an orange plastic sack full of stuff, zigzagging down a hill, dismounting and mounting again, and dismounting and leading through trees and then backing through them. None of the obstacles were particularly difficult or scary, which was good so as not to risk intimidation of my youngster. I imagine it was hard to judge the extreme class though as there were so many experienced trail competitors and they all probably did well on the obstacles.

The funniest part of the competition was running into a whole bunch of kids on the trail. Cay and I could hear them shrieking in the woods ahead. I slowed her to a trot when they came into sight. There were probably 25 boys age 5-10 or so all over the trail. There were no adults in sight and the kids all carried some sort of air (mouth) powered gun made out of white pvc pipe. They started hollering, "Intruder," when they saw me and scurrying around to take aim at me and my horse! I dropped my reins on Cay's neck and put my hands in the air like "I surrender" as I rode into the midst of them. Then I decided to pick up my reins in case one of the little buggers decided to fire! I had caught them off guard so they didn't really know what to do except keep their weapons trained on me. Some were only a couple feet off the trail and the turned with me as I rode by to keep me in their sites. I was sure one would shoot Cayenne in the butt but they resisted temptation! I wasn't sure what exactly they had loaded in their guns but in talking to other riders back at camp, they were marshmallow guns. Adults at the nearby tent camping area started calling the boys to come eat as soon as I got by so many of the riders didn't run into the group that I did. Many did see hundreds of marshmallows on the trail though!

There are two more trail challenges at Farragut this month. It's only about an hour and forty five minutes so definitely close compared to most of the other ones. They are being put on by different organizations and therefore, ran differently with different obstacles. I think staying close to home and getting some experience under Cayenne's belt (saddle blanket?) is a good idea. It's fun to travel to far off places but not very economical! Once she's a seasoned campaigner, it will make sense to get her out to challenge the world!