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On a Bank
Holiday weekend when the weather man was predicting traditional spring time
weather about 200 riders gathered for the inaugral running of the Hilton
Herbs Southern Championships. This two day events feature class is the two
day 160km ER, with two 65km ER's being held on the Sunday and supporting
graded ride classes on both days. The second of these 65km ER's is a Tyro
class, which means it is restricted to horses competing in their first ever
ER. A good field of entries was anticipated for all of the ER's. Duiker and
I were entered for the open 65km ER, our first ever competitive ride since
coming to me in November, hence we were aiming for a completion at about
16.6-17kph. We travelled up the afternoon beforehand and vetted that
evening. Then settled Duiker into her stable for night at Silver Lane Stud
right next door to our B& B, Manor House. She soon settled down to
eating her food and we all went for an early night.
In the morning we packed up
and set off to the venue. Steve unloaded
Duiker while I attended the ride briefing. Then returned to Steve and
Duiker tacked up and warmed up. As this was our first mass start together I
was not sure what to expect from Duiker.
She appeared calm and under control as we trotted off down the start
with the rest of the class, out on to the Ridgeway and broke into a
collected canter. As I expected the leaders in this class set a hard and
fast pace. I elected not to follow
suit and to stick to my ride plan. We met Steve at check point one sloshed
and were off again down a short road stretch to the next section of grass.
We were riding by ourselves at this point, enjoying the scenery, with
Duiker setting the gait and me the pace within the gait. Check point 2 was
passed and we headed towards our second crew point. Along the way we were
met and passed by John Hudson on Tigre then joined by rider number 220,
sorry name unknown. Steve Crewed us again and we were then heading for
home.
Shortly after turning back
on to the ridge way we were able to do our good deed of the day be
directing a rider in the correct direction as they were about to head off
in the wrong one. As we approached the vet gate I was very aware that we
had to make a heart rate parameter of 56 bpm in 20 minutes of passing the
finish so only trotted and shortly
after turning up the finishing straight hopped off and walked Duiker in.
Steve was waiting with a slosh and collected our in time card. We had
parked the trailer a short distance from and backing on to the crew area so
we crewed at the trailer, sloshing Duiker and walking her then checking her
heart rate. Her heart rate did not appear to be dropping as quickly as I
know it does at home so was a little concerned. As it was not overly warm
we rugged her and presented to the vets 16 minutes after passing the line.
It was a tight run thing
with our first heart rate at 56bpm and the second at 60, just passed. However she was not sound. So we had to
retrot for a panel of three vets. This
time she was more noticeably lame on the offside hind. Because here heart rate had gone up post
the second trot up the vet asked us to return in an hours time to be
checked and hopefully given the all clear to travel home. However within 30
minutes of vetting out she was showing signs of stress, shivering despite being
warm and well rugged and an erratic heart rate. We returned to the vet who
checked her over and gave her a bute injection, which almost instantly
stopped her shivering. We then mooched around for another hour eating grass
and sandwiches before being given the all clear to go home.
We packed up and went home
where I completely unpacked, did my horse washing from the event and we
both did some DIY. So a somewhat strangely productive weekend on the home
front but not so on the horse front. It's a bit disappointing to have not
completed the two rides entered so far this season, but got to take the
positive things from the day, i,e, my first ER start without ending up in
the lead. I will have to get Duiker to talk to Dougal about this...
Below are my heart rate
monitor and GPS readings from this ride.
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