Tresham Endurance Report – Highs and Lows

[monkeybum13]

Sunday was Lacey’s (and mine) second endurance ride. We’d entered the 28km non-competitive ride having had a ball at Cirencester Park 30km no-competitive ride last year. I knew something would go wrong seeing as it was April Fool’s day but more about that later.

I’ll try and keep this short as I do have a tendency to waffle! Tresham is our closest endurance ride and an area I know very well as my friend has horses that way so I’d ridden a lot of the route over the years. Arrived at the venue to a field of relaxed horses (endurance horses are so chilled!) and lots of colour, you dressage riders aint got s**t on endurance when it comes to matchy matchy! Bit of a queue for the farrier but passed both farrier and vet checks. Took our time to tack up and headed to the start, no-one was waiting so I headed off on my own almost immediately.

Lacey started off really well on her own with a good mix of trotting and canter (and locking on to several hunt jumps, silly pony ) and a few short periods of walk. Had a good splosh down with water and the first crew point and carried on with some good, long canters. Our track then met up with the 80kms so things started to get busy and Lacey got bouncier and bouncier! Lots more canters through fields and over the point to point course where madam eyed up the p2p jumps and then I buddied up with someone else doing the 28km ride. Lacey calmed down once she had a friend, even if he did have a very fast trot! Madam could keep up in the trot but decided than a steady canter was easier, try telling her canter is easy when it comes to flat work! The rest of the ride went well despite quite a few slippy roads and compulsory walk sections.

Back at the venue you have 30minutes once you have finished before you present to the vet so we had lots of walking and washing off to cool her down. Lacey doesn’t normally drink away from home but we tried some horse quencher and she did drink some Passed the vetting and we slowly got her ready to travel. Loaded her in the trailer, picked up our rosette and headed home.

Washed her off again at home and then put her in her stable to have some food and more water. She drank quite a bit but wouldn’t eat and then started shaking all over. I got her out to walk around again and mum phoned the vets, he thought it might just be that her muscles weren’t expelling the heat as they should do so we had cycles of completely covering her with water, walking for 10 minutes and repeat. After 4 or 5 cycles she looked a lot better and the shaking had stopped so she went back in her stable, we sat around just watching her and then another livery kept an eye on her whilst we popped home for a short while and then back up the yard to rug her for the night. Luckily it was nothing serious but she looked in such a bad way it was really upsetting. She was a lot brighter this morning and happy munching her grass in the field, I checked her on my way back from university and she looked fine. She’s got a couple of days off and much to her disappointed she’s back on dressage boot camp.

I said I wouldn’t waffle but I have,oops! Here’s a few pictures!

Setting off through the start:

Ambling along to a crew point:

Typically there were huge piles of gravel in a lay by on the A46, a lay by that was meant for crewing

All ready for bed with her rosette

 

[glamourpuss]

Well done! A great report
I'm glad the wierd shaking thing was nothing serious!

 

[Gracie21]

I love hearing about these Endurance rides, I am desperate to get involved & am advert watching seeing as my pone is only 3. I hope to be joining you soon!

Looks like you had a fab day and I'm so glad she was okay

 

[spookypony]

Congrats on the successful completion! Scary when something goes wrong after---a friend just reported something that sounds very similar, after a long hack. Was it unseasonably hot where you were?

I was really nervous all weekend if we had done enough fittening, and am off to check on him in a bit.

 

[BroadfordQueen]

Bless her, well done! Glad to hear she's all okay now

 

[EstherYoung]

Well done on the completion. It can take time before you get the measure of how she reacts to different conditions, and there's always something to learn for next time.

If it was anything like up our way, the weather was pretty difficult to read. Although it was hot, there was quite a chilly breeze - you sort of had to keep them warm and keep them cool at the same time. Spud got a bit shivery on his quarters but was too warm on his shoulders. So it was probably the weather coupled with a bit of tiredness and dehydration. It's a bit like hunters breaking out after they arrive home from hunting.

 

[monkeybum13]

Well done! A great report
I'm glad the wierd shaking thing was nothing serious!

Thanks

I love hearing about these Endurance rides, I am desperate to get involved & am advert watching seeing as my pone is only 3. I hope to be joining you soon!

Looks like you had a fab day and I'm so glad she was okay

We certainly did have a good day. Endurance is really fun and everyone is very helpful, when Lacey was being very bouncy everyone shouts to check you are ok and if it is alright to pass well in advance, they don’t just creep up on you and canter past! The thing that strikes me the most about endurance is the horses are incredibly fit, yet so relaxed at the same time.

Congrats on the successful completion! Scary when something goes wrong after---a friend just reported something that sounds very similar, after a long hack. Was it unseasonably hot where you were?

I was really nervous all weekend if we had done enough fittening, and am off to check on him in a bit.

It was warm but luckily not as hot as it has been in the week, I think we would have fried! We think it is just one of those things, she was plenty fit enough and was happy when we finished and all the time before we got home.

Bless her, well done! Glad to hear she's all okay now

She’s milking ‘being ill’ now by being fussy. She’s got huge piles of hay, haylage and then carrots in her fast fibre and she’s taking nibbles of each and the looking at us with big puppy eyes, that horse should win a bafta!

Well done on the completion. It can take time before you get the measure of how she reacts to different conditions, and there's always something to learn for next time.

If it was anything like up our way, the weather was pretty difficult to read. Although it was hot, there was quite a chilly breeze - you sort of had to keep them warm and keep them cool at the same time. Spud got a bit shivery on his quarters but was too warm on his shoulders. So it was probably the weather coupled with a bit of tiredness and dehydration. It's a bit like hunters breaking out after they arrive home from hunting.

You’re right about the dehydration, she’s one of those annoying horses that won’t drink away from home, she did drink some with the horsequencher but not enough. With the chilly breeze I was worried she’d catch a chill having been washed down so much so I put a fleece on her to travel and again once we’d washed her off at home, in hindsight I should have left it off, poor pony!

 

[Festive_Felicitations]

Well done on the comp! Sounds like you had a great time.

The sahking afterwards sounds very scary! Glad she is feeling well enought to milk it for all it is worth.

 

[monkeybum13]

Well done on the comp! Sounds like you had a great time.

The sahking afterwards sounds very scary! Glad she is feeling well enought to milk it for all it is worth.

She's very good at milking it! She showed me just how well she's feeling now when trying to school in the rain earlier