NAF Red Dragon, Little Dragon Ride Report
Early the next morning, though not as early as last year thankfully, Steve and I got up and this time drove to the show ground. Dougal had eaten all of the food I had left him last night which is always reassuring. We walked him over to the trailer, tacked up, on I hopped and walked down to the start of the ER. This was the largest field I had been in for an ER, 39, so was a bit nervous about the start. However Dougal seemed to be in super cool chill mode and surprised me by simply trotting of sedately with the pack to the base of the long climb up, which I insisted he carried out at a walk. Once again I wondered how the farmer who mans the gate on this hill gets his ford escort van up there as the track below is quite often knee deep in mud. At the top we headed of out across the hill with a group of about 4 or five of us including Amy Boult, Katie Smith, Annie Joppe and myself swapping the lead all the way to the first vet gate. Where to my surprise we crossed the line first, I was convinced there was a rider ahead of us all. Unfortunately Dougal's heart rate did not drop as it does usually and he was not drinking so it took us about 13 minutes to vet. We were asked to represent before leaving as the vet was not happy with either his gut sounds or hydration state, 3, 0 is the normal fully hydrated score. By the time we represented Dougal had eaten though not drunk and the vet advised us she was happy to let us go as long as we took it easy and I stopped at puddles to let him drink.
So off we headed in 5th place on the lollipop loop, we quickly caught up Rachel Bishop on scarlet and carried on together, at every puddle along the way I stopped and let Dougal drink to his fill then carried on. Due to the time it would take to get to the one crewing point and the length of this stage Steve and I had decided not to crew at all. The ride organisers had very kindly laid on a large number of filled water buckets at the check point and we again stopped for a drink. Shortly after leaving the check points Rachel and I caught up with Danielle Coulson on Euphorias Quest, she had slowed down as the horse was not enjoying the going. As we were heading back towards the 2nd vet gate before rejoining the section of road the three of us were joined by Katie Smith on Baraka Shah and we all rode into the second vet gate together.
I miscalculated a bit here and lost us about 4 minutes as we failed the first present after 5 minutes as Dougal's heart rate was 2 beats over 64. The walk over to vet had pushed it up, so as not to be failed I waited till the HRM was reading 58 and we passed with a heart rate of 56, improved gut sounds and a dehydration score of 0. During his rest period Dougal ate and drank as per normal and I partook of some lunch, a little call of nature and did some tack cleaning. With ten minutes to go it was time to start tacking up and warming Dougal up ready for the off. Because of my error in judgment of when to present we were now in 6th place with a 2 minute lead on the next horse and about 3 minutes behind the 5th placed horse.
We set off at a steady trot with Dougal appearing to have switched of slightly, something to remember in future, and were caught up by the rider behind before we left the road and headed back to the hills. I was determined not to make the same mistake I made at Berkshire Downs so asked Dougal to keep pace with our new companion Samba and V Comock. We stayed together over the hills and down the road to the next crewing point where we met Steve had a drink and a slosh and were informed Rachel was a couple of minutes ahead and Danielle was about 10 plus minutes ahead. As a pair Samba and I headed up the climb out from the village, through the farmyard and back to the top. Shortly after leaving the farmyard Dougal picked up his pace and we were off by ourselves again into the blustery wind. About a mile or two before the way down the hill the route bends to the left and we spotted Rachel Bishop and Scarlet ahead. Dougal increased his pace again so that we caught up with Rachel on the way down the hill, passing Sue Rich and her daughter Louise who were on there way home from a shorter graded ride. Rachel and I came out onto the short stretch of road leading to the industrial site and the last crewing point before home. In the lay-by a short distance before the industrial estate we joined Danielle Coulson, who was being crewed. Danielle and I kicked on at this point and moved away from Rachel. I took a slosh bottle from Steve at the trot, emptied it over Dougal and then threw the container backwards as we headed towards the disused railway path back to the last road crossing and then into the show ground. Danielle and I cantered head to head across the bottom of the show ground up the incline and towards the finish. As we entered he show ring we both kicked on for a racing finish with Danielle just piping us across the line.
I hopped off and walked Dougal to the truck loosening his girth and sloshing him with water Steve had handed me, while he collected our time card. We had 20 minutes now in which to work on Dougal to get his heart rate down to 64 and stop him from stiffening up to pass the vet check. With 4 minutes left to go we presented to the vets with an initial heart rate of 60 dropping to 56 after the trot up. We were asked to retrot for a panel of three vets. I just kept thinking no not again please after such a great ride and finish. I had a quiet word in Dougal’s ear to please put one last effort in. After what seemed like ages the verdict was given, we had passed! The three of us walked away a happy group with a job well done believing we were 5th only to be informed by Danielle’s father that the first horse past the post had failed the vetting, having been lame, so were fourth.
Post ride thoughts;
I confess to being very glad we were the first ones out on the course as the overnight rain had made the course somewhat slippery. However Dougal tackled this with his usual mountain goat like sure-footedness and I believe I am right in saying we only slipped three times on the whole course.
What a wonderful way to finish the season, now to survive the long wait till it all starts again.
Below are my heart rate monitor GPS readings from this ride.
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