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.