Green Lane: Camping and NACMO

 The Father's Day NACMO at Green Lane was two weekends ago. This year, I decided to book two nights of camping for extra saddle time. Of course, it turned out to be the hottest week of the year so far, with a real feel well over 100℉. It wound up being a great weekend despite the heat.

Jersey Devil 2024

After Hector, my ride season came to an abrupt halt. We missed Chautauqua. After that, I set my sights on Mustang. Originally, I was planning to take Lucy and do her first LD. I was going to ride with Sam on Puma. Then Mustang got cancelled. We regrouped and planned for Jersey Devil. The plan was to ride Lucy in the 25 with Sam. Then Sam mentioned that she wanted to do the two day 50. It would be her first multi day. I decided to enter Lucy in back to back 25's. This way, if she completed one day and not the second, the miles from day one would still count. It would be more expensive, but since I ride pass fail, I was all for it. 

After the Essex hunter pace, I had my doubts about Lucy being able to do both days. Booger, meanwhile, was still rip roaring fit. I had no doubt she could do 50 miles in two days. It would be our first multi-day as well. In the end, I decided to enter Booger in both 25's. My train of thought was to ride the first day and see how it went. If I wasn't having a good time, I didn't have to start the second day. I was interested to see if she'd be quieter on the second day. I keep telling myself "no more sand rides for Booger" because she treats them like really long race track. But I had such a good time riding with Sam last year. I figured it was worth a try.

It turns out, Booger wasn't the problem that weekend. 

I seriously love this mare so much.

Fair Hill Camping (Redux)

 Originally, I was planning to do the Horseshoe Bend Boogie in August. I was going to take Lucy and try the LD. Christine and I planned to ride together, like we did at the CTR. 

As the ride grew closer, however, neither one of us was feeling particularly gung ho about it. It was a lot of prepping, planning, and pressure. The more we chatted about it, the more lukewarm we felt about the whole thing. 

Finally I offered, "Or we could just pick a quiet spot and go fun camping instead..."

SOLD. 

We quickly decided to do Fair Hill. We made last minute reservations. I booked the same stalls Sandy had last time. I was looking forward to a weekend of just relaxing with no concrete goals or timelines. 

The week leading up to our trip, the forecast looked abysmal. It was supposed to rain pretty much the entire weekend. I was fine taking our chances. Worst case, we would leave the horses in their warm, dry stalls and hang out in the LQ, drinking and snacking and chilling. 

The weekend wound up being a great time.

Muckleratz LD 2024

The short version of the 2024 Muckleratz endurance ride is as follows:
I was going to do the 50. The temperature was in the mid 90's with high humidity. I had a crappy week. My motto for the weekend was, "I don't even want to be here." I ended up dropping down to the 30 to ride with Christine. It ended up being the best endurance ride Booger and I have had to date.

Nockamixon with Christine

 I am soooo behind on blogging. Like, a full month behind. Ugggghhhhh. 

Ok. Enough whining.

In the last year, Christine has become one of my all time favorite people. The only downside is that we live over two hours apart, which is inconvenient. We had so much fun riding at the CTR together that we really wanted to do it again. 

The next ride on the calendar was Muckleratz. I was planning to do the 50 with Booger. Christine and I slowly hatched a plan. When we rode at Green Lane together, Booger went really well. Christine pitched the idea of starting the 50 together, to see if Booger would be better with calm, steady company right from the start. We agreed that our best bet was to take Gracelyn and Booger out for another conditioning ride together. My hope was that Booger would start to recognize Gracelyn as a buddy, which would inspire her to wait for her friend at Muckleratz. 

We agreed to meet at Nockamixon on the 16th. We wound up doing almost 14 miles and it was lovely.

Lucy's First CTR

 People periodically ask me if I'm going to do endurance with Lucy. I always say no. Historically, I've also said things like, "Lucy gets to about 15 miles and says that's enough for her." She doesn't quit or anything, but I just didn't feel she'd ever want to do more than that. 

This winter, Lucy got pretty fit. She was feeling better than ever. As you know, I took her to Foxcatcher and did the intro. It was only 12 miles, but we did it at CTR speed and I had plenty of horse left at the finish. Nick told me with confidence that he felt she could do an LD. That really got the wheels turning in my head.

The question then became: what LD is somewhat local and has terrain that isn't much harder than Fair Hill? I did not have a good answer to that one. 

After No Frills got cancelled and Booger ended up on UlcerGard, I scrapped my day dream of going down to Biltmore this year. That left me free on the weekend of the NJ 100+ CTR. This ride is an hour and a half from home in the Pine Barrens. It's actually held at Kowboy Korral, which is where I did my first ever ride on Ozzy back when Mustang was held there. I haven't been back to that venue since 2010 (Ozzy's last 50 mile completeion). I have never done NJ 100. 

I decided to see how Lucy did on our camping trip to Fair Hill. I rode her three days in a row and she felt awesome. I went home and sent my entry for the 25. I was torn about whether I actually wanted to do a two-loop CTR. The short holds always stress me out. Plus the NJ 100 features away holds, which was probably going to be even worse for Lucy's first time doing a hold at all. Mike reminded me that it's Lucy and she's a Very Good Girl. 

"You'll be fine," he told me.

So I filled out my entry, checked the box for pass/fail, and hit send. I figured it would be a good test, and if she got pulled I wouldn't be upset because there would be no record of it anywhere. 

It turned out Christine was planning to ride Gracelyn in the 25 as well, and we agreed to start together and see how it went. 

Photo taken by Mike at the finish. As you can probably tell from our grins, it went really well!

 

Green Lane with Christine

 Three weeks ago, Christine and I met up at Green Lane for a ride. I really enjoyed riding there last year with Dodie and looked forward to going back with Booger. There is a NACMO ride coming up at Green Lane, so I'd like to get to know the trails a bit. Christine and I live about three hours apart, so this was a good halfway point. Christine had never been to Green Lane and was looking forward to seeing some new trail. Gracelyn tends to be a good influence on spicy Arabians, and I was looking to do some slow miles. Gracelyn hadn't been out in a few months so this was a plan that suited everybody. It wound up being an awesome day. 

I have been ordering Willit breeches from Amazon and I freaking love them. They're like thirty bucks and are sturdier than the Kerrits tights I've been wearing. Plus they come in all kinds of fun colors!

Farewell to Asad

 At the beginning of November, Christine had to euthanize her 12yo Arabian gelding, Asad, due to a degenerative neurological condition. Before the appointment, she asked if Mike and I would come up and take some last pictures of Asad. She also wanted pictures of all three of her horses together. Of course, we said yes. We wound up taking over 1200 photos. It is not my story to share, but Asad was just about the sweetest horse I've met. He was snuggly and personable and acted more like a dog than a horse. I just wanted to share some of the photos we got that day.

Run free, sweet boy.

Crewing Mustang Memorial

 The weekend after we got back from our vacation was the Mustang Memorial endurance ride, right here in NJ. Originally, I had planned this ride to be Booger's first 50. When I entered her in the Horseshoe Bend Boogie in August, I was hoping it would be her second 50. After she was not-quite-sound at the finish, I went back to the drawing board. I hemmed and hawed and Mike encouraged me to enter the ride. My mantra all year has been "just try it and see what happens". Jen F and Christine would be attempting their first 50's. Jen M was coming to crew for them. A lot of our friends would be coming down. I wanted to camp and ride and have a good time.

In the end, I entered the 30. I planned for it to be my last ride of the season. The only other ride left on the AERC calendar was Fort Valley, and we are definitely not ready for OD trails. 

With 48 hours to go, I couldn't shake a bad gut feeling. Plus the forecast was calling for 80% rain. I had only ridden Booger on trail once since the 50. I ride her in the ring about three times a week so she's not just sitting, but still...

If I was being honest with myself, I just plain didn't want to do this ride. I have done Mustang a million times. The trails are, frankly, boring. I will never beat crossing the finish line of the 50 in first place with a ride time of 4h13m in 2013. While I try to actively support all endurance rides, and especially the local ones, I didn't want to go. Thirty miles of sand and pine trees in the pouring rain sounded awful.

So I did something I've never done before. I pulled my ride entry and cancelled my PTO. 

Instead, we went down and crewed for Jen and Christine. It ended up being a lovely day.

Crew Jen, Killian, Rider Jen, and me.

Trexler

 The day after the fox hunting clinic, I met up with Jen and Christine to ride at Trexler. You would think they would have run for the hills after seeing Booger running through the forest without me at Muckleratz, but apparently I have found my people. I was delighted to be invited. Mike and I hiked Trexler right before the pandemic, and I have been wanting to ride there ever since. As always, I am eager to go on any adventure that means I don't have to navigate. 

We were meeting up early, the terrain is a bit technical, and the ladies originally planned to do the ten mile loop twice with a "hold" in the middle. All of that meant I was heading out to meet them by myself. 

The whole day turned out to be an adventure.

We totally harassed a stranger into taking this picture and texting it to us.

Fox Hunting Clinic

 Two weekends ago, we tried something new.