23 – My First 160… At Last!
Five years and a couple of months since George and I won our gold medal at the Master’s Games, Lace and I were about to tackle our first 160km ride at Whareama. It was also my first time to the Nationals! Whareama is quite a distance from Waikato, so it was planned to take a couple of days to get there. The truck was leaving Wednesday morning and ponies and people were all welcome at a friend of Kerry’s place in Palmerston North that night, then on to base Thursday morning. Bill didn’t cope well with me being away too long, so I was driving down on Thursday with Nicola who was coming along as Lace’s chief crew. We were taking two horses, they were both in the 160, so we were a bit short on crew members.
Nicola and I started out very early on a wet Thursday and were rewarded as we were leaving with a rainbow by moonlight! Beautiful. A tree at work had been dropping sticky stuff on my windscreen and coming in to Taumarunui behind a truck spraying muddy water up I was nearly blind as the wipers just made a smeary mess and it was still dark… at least I could see the tail lights! So a required stop at the service station to buy two types of windscreen wash stuff and cloths! Better but not perfect. The rest of the trip was uneventful and we arrived at base shortly after midday.
To find that everything was NOT all right with the team. It had been all right… until the ramp came down and it was discovered that the cupboard in front of Lace had come open, spilling covers under her feet. She was agitated and just wanted to get out… NOW! Richard had gone up to rescue her and had got severely trampled for his efforts as Lace burst out over the top of him, kicking and smashing things as she went. End result – Nicola and I would have passed Richard on the way in as he was being taken to Masterton hospital with a broken ankle. Miraculously Lace seemed to be ok, with only a couple of small bits of skin missing. But not an auspicious start!
Others had not been so lucky, some of their horses had gone down in the truck on the journey and their horse was out of the 160. Luckily the rider was able to pick up a ride on another horse that was switching from the 120 to the 160.
I took Lace for a ride and she seemed ok, passed the pre-ride check fine. Ride briefing was quite late and then we were all off to bed.
Richard had came back all strapped up and on codeine, happy as! He spent most of the next day sitting in my car by the vet ring talking to people. But of course this meant we were down to only one crew member per horse.
It was a big field – 33 – and somehow Lace and I ended up nearer the front than I wanted, with the lead bunch in fact… not the plan! So with about 6km to go on the first loop I took an opportunity to walk up a slight hill when the others had disappeared around a corner, out of sight meant Lace didn’t mind too much – our slow season and increased distance had paid off! This was her eighth ride of four or more loops and her attitude now tended to be “you just keep going until it’s done”, and when there were horses ahead she was still interested but it was now “you’ll keep, the day is young”, rather than the “I MUST catch them NOW” of a few seasons before!
A lovely sight of horses cantering up a hill silhouetted against the full moon.
With the sun came the frost, my fingers were freezing! I stole Kerry’s gloves.
Looking back on that ride I realise just how much I learnt that day. Not so much from my own ride but from watching the others in the lead group. As we all know now the course was short. I think that is a great pity, because regardless of the actual distance Mark rode a brilliant race that day and deserves more credit for it. Lace and I were now far enough behind that we would see the leading bunch coming the other way on parts of the track that were two way. Then we would come in and vet in time to watch the leaders heading off on their next loop. Mark would canter out around the base a minute or two ahead, making the next horses race to catch him each time, thus forcing them to use more energy. Then again later we would see them trotting around the loop together. As Mark was going out on his last loop Lace and I were still out on course, I will never forget watching as Class Act galloped across the field still well ahead, but then not far behind Freckles going even faster to catch them. Would we still be in our hold to watch the finish?? There were people on the gates for that last loop, no slowing down. Yes, we were. Everyone was anxiously waiting, anticipating a very exciting finish, who would come in to base first? Would they still be neck and neck? But then the news came in, Freckles had fallen! She was ok, thank goodness, and went on to complete in second place successfully but our exciting expected gallop finish did not eventuate.
Lace had been vetting very well. Nicola would meet me at the finish line, saddle off and walk quietly to the vet ring – it was quite a distance – check heart rate, check feet, call time. I think we put water on her only once. The weather was pretty cold for much of the day which helped. She had the lowest total lag times of the day though – 20:08! Ok, we weren’t racing but that’s still a good effort.
So I had my first buckle. In New Zealand buckles are only given to all qualifers at the National Championships, at the Island Champs only the winner gets a buckle and that is even a recent addition.
Emma and Shimar had also qualified, as had Petra and Dancer (and lots of others). I was very tired and fell asleep while everyone was still talking at about 6:30! Woke and got up briefly to see the 120 start next morning at 3am though, then back to sleep for a few more hours.
Next day we were off home again, I was enjoying watching the 120, but we needed to get on the road. I missed my buckle award, but Lace was there with Kerry. We took Richard home with us – having handed his crutches in at Masterton hospital, toilet stops were difficult! But there’s a nice rest area under the viaduct with bushes handily close to the car… Nicola did all the driving, I was still knackered! Once in Hamilton Nicola took Richard up to hospital, where he waited about a week for surgery to screw his ankle back together.
Another season finished – Lace had completed 1020km that season and was Distance Horse of the Year!!!! The AGM was in Wellington. But it was cold, and as Bill did not cope well during winter I could not justify being away. So our prizes were picked up by friends.
