22 – Okoroire and another HOY (2009)
Okoroire was always a lovely course. It’s almost an up-down reverse ride, the tops of the ‘hills’ being hay paddocks separated by large gulleys, but also the more normal flat-ish valleys between hills. The venue of Lace’s first endurance ride, now we were here for 120km, five weeks after the NIs.
It was February. It was hot. It was a two star. It was a three loop 120… all 40km. That’s hard, but the good thing was that with one 40 minute hold less we would be finished that much earlier before it got even hotter. Still I think I prefer shorter loops… not sure you’re allowed to do three loop 120s anymore.
As I was riding, someone else had to be on vet-gate, we didn’t have our system entirely sussed at that stage and the caravan was elsewhere for general entries etc… so poor Nicola spent a sweltering day cooped up in the back of a horse float. We also didn’t have the generator then so I’m not sure what we did for power.
Strapping was in one small paddock, the vet ring was in a larger paddock just around the corner of the yards. We got away with water for strapping from a trough, and the great thing was that someone cleaned it out the day before, lovely sparkling clear water not full of algae and crap. There was however a hot spot just before the vet-gate. Heart rate would be fine in the strapping area, we’d come around the corner, check again and it would have gone up. Possibly Lace simply didn’t like that spot for some reason also, but her lag times that day were not great.
The main thing I remember about that day was riding with Emma and Stu. Emma and I were giving Stu heaps about cutting the odd corner and Stu always gives back as good as he gets! We weren’t in the lead, Mark was in front and someone else, we were next. It was clear early on that Shimmy was travelling best of our three so a few ks from home Emma headed in to get third, Lace and I claiming fourth. Stu came in slowly and I think may have vetted out. . Shimar won Best Conditioned.
Another 80 at Waitomo’s Paemako ride and then we were all off to HOY again. It was only three weeks until the Nationals though, and I think new stand down rules that had just come in meant that you couldn’t do the 100 at HOY and the 160 at the Nationals because the 160 was on Friday so less than the three weeks specified by one day. But it was ok, this year they put on two rides, the normal 100km and an 80 as well.
Another difference this year was that the endurance was to be based at the equestrian centre not the show grounds. For the first time they were having a three day event and the endurance and cross-country were scheduled to be on the same day so we would have spectators. That ended up being a failure as, although a completely new course this year, there was still out post vetting, and again we rode out to essentially what was a second base, did the next loops from there, then rode back to the show grounds. So nothing for the spectators to see. The 80km actually finished at the out-post base, and the 100 sort of finished in the middle of no-where as they were held up from finishing due to horses on the cross-country course – and they are of course more important than us – so a bit of a mess. They then did a mock finish, staying in the same order before vetting.
Once again there were South African riders and this year we were left to put together our own teams for the 80km. So our team was Emma and I, Chris and a South African girl. It was a lovely ride once again, we weren’t interested in going too fast with the Nationals only three weeks away and finished with a three way walking race between the South African, Emma and I for first, second and third. At first the SA support team couldn’t understand what we were doing, they were all expecting a gallop finish, but then they got into it and were cheering us across the line as we raced walking neck and neck!
On the whole I found it very disappointing that we were not at the show grounds. Sure it was nice to be camped with the eventers, but they kept mainly to themselves. But there was no horse-back sight-seeing, no watching the other events, no going around the stalls shopping – cars had to be organised, with some people always staying back with the horses – We did travel in for the horse-spectacular evening though. And then they made us all travel our horses in to the show grounds for the presentation, only to have the main arena not be available and have the presentation just amongst ourselves anyway. Lace was fine and calm at the prize giving until she heard the “Stand up for the Champions” song in the distance, and just like that she got totally upset and hyper… she hates that song, it has become associated with the arena and crowds applauding randomly!
So all in all it just felt like an ordinary endurance ride, nothing too special.
That was the last of endurance at the HOY, it was fun while it lasted… but often clashed with the Nationals and the next year the costs were going to go up hugely – apparently they had been giving us cheaper rates to encourage us to attend. With it now being held away from the main event no one was keen to continue at that price.
