The Git R Done Special was put together to help FEI riders get themselves and their horses qualified for upcoming FEI races.  We decided to take 5 horses down for the ride to get the horses through various levels of their qualifications.

On Thursday we drove down to Ridgecrest and settled in all of the horses.  Then we went out to dinner with the Donley's (friends and owners of My Mamselle).  It was their son, JJ's birthday earlier in the week and Jeremy's birthday would happen the day of the race so we celebrated their birthdays over dinner.  It was very enjoyable.

We returned to camp and headed to bed.  Jeremy and I enjoyed an Eddie Murphy stand up act on our laptop before falling asleep.  Pretty funny.

On Friday Jeremy woke up and went for a run and glued on boots to our horses hooves while I ran into town to get a new headlamp.  It seems that all of our high powered ones had either died or disappeared.  I also went to Starbucks because I could:)

After I returned we meet up with Lani.  She is the number one ranked South African rider at the moment she is also ranked number 2 on the FEI World Rider Ranking list.  Lani would be riding Stratagem aka Strut on the 75.  We went out on a pre ride so that she could get to
 know him better.  Also on the pre ride were: Maddy riding Carnivalle, Jeremy on Makazin, Tim on A Kutt Above and myself on Ssamiam. 

After the pre ride we continued to get our crew gear together and then we went to vet in.  All of the horses looked great.  After weighing in and finishing up on the crew gear we all headed to town for another birthday dinner.  Tim was not there for the Thursday dinner and as he is Jeremy's twin it was his birthday too.

We had a great sushi dinner and then went back for the ride meeting.

Saturday we all woke up and got on our horses.  All of the distances were starting at the same time.  It was nice because I was riding the 100 and this way I could ride with Jeremy and Lani for the first 75 miles as they were on the 75.  Tim and Maddy were doing the 50.

The day flew by.  Holly, my sister, and Megan Doyle were our awesome crew.  They were busy to say the least!  With 5 horses coming and going they were on their toes.  The ride was two 12.5 mile loops that you kept repeating.  They didn't have much time between horses.  Holly did have time however to make a large drawing in the sand at one of the crew points that read "Happy Birthday Jeremy and Tim".

After Jeremy and Lani finished Sam had to go out alone for the last 25 miles.  I have never ridden Sam at night before.  He was really confused by the headlamp.  At one point my hand blocked the light for a moment and it made a shadow that Sam physically jumped over!  Another time he tucked up and jumped over a dark spot, he wasn't taking any chances!  Then we had to ride along the highway and the headlights coming and going made it so hard to see.  I wouldn't have been able to jog with that kind of light changing all the time.  Sam did great and just kept trotting.

At the end of the day My Mamselle won the 50 with JJ, Carnivalle was 6th with Best Condition on the 50 for AERC and FEI, Kutt was 7th.  This was great because both Kutt and Carnivalle now have their CEI* completed.

Makazin won the 75 FEI and AERC and won Best Condition on both as well, Strut was 3rd on the 75.

Sam won the FEI and AERC 100.  He also has his COC now, he did the 100 in 9:57, and this was his first 100.

Needless to say we were very happy with our weekend.

We are driving home now, heading into the rain.  Darn.  Our next adventure will be going to the President's Cup in the UAE.  Jeremy has been invited to compete on Sir Smith.  The race is on Feb 13th.  He and Smitty will leave on the 27th of this month.  I will go on Feb 5th.  See you all soon.
Heather