Today was another great ride for Reynolds Racing!  Jeremy and our friend/client Carole Kraft Edwards rode the Calero Classic 50.  Jeremy was on our mare, Mya (Smitty and Stirgess' half sister) and Carole was on her own horse, Freebie Tiki.  The pair rode together all day.

 At the first vet check, which was 20 miles into the ride, they recovered 3rd and 4th.  Dennis Tracy and Diane Trifethon (SP?) were one and two and then Jeremy and Carole recovered next.  Shortly after leaving vet check one Dennis, unfortunately got lost moving everyone up a placing. 

Five miles later, 25 miles into the ride, was the one hour hold.  Jeremy, Carole and Diane all arrived together.  Jeremy and Carole recovered together and Diane was moments behind them.  After the hour Jeremy and Carole rode out and had a great second half.  Both horses were doing great and climbing the hills, hills and more hills.  Did I mention that this ride is really hilly?

  At the third vet check, mile 35, Jeremy and Carole had close to a ten minute lead and the horses looked great still.  They arrived and were both very hot so we spent a lot of time cooling them out all throughout their hold time.

All day Jeff Townsend, Megan Robinson and I were crewing and having a fun time keeping each other company while we awaited our riders.  Megan also is a ranger for the Open Space Preserve that this race goes into. She had to more or less stay stationed at that end of the park. 

Jeff and I went back to base camp to get things ready and then to sit and wait at the finish to see what would happen.  At 1 pm Jeremy and Carole trotted into view and crossed the finish line for a hand held tie.  What a fun ride!  It was Carole's second 50.  It was also her second ride on her new horse Freebie.  What a great duo. 

Fifteen minutes later we did our CRI's on both horses.  My was a 52/52 and Freebie was 52/56.  Not bad for a really hot and extremely hilly ride.

After a lot of feeding, cooling and icing legs it was finally time for Best Condition.  Carole and I practiced this for the first time with her as well as her horse Freebie about an hour before they showed.  We did not expect to be needing this kind of practice for a while to come yet, but oh well.

Mya showed well by trotting in her nice circles.  She really does not see a point in this sort of ritual and thinks we are all insane for demanding this of her.  Freebie also showed well.  Carole did well for her first attempt at this as it can be easy to get awkward on the circle portion your first few times showing.

After we finished our trot outs we had a great BB-Q dinner of the best corn imaginable, tri tip, salad and garlic bread.  I did not envy the poor guys having to BB-Q out in the sun.  Thank you to whoever was the cook.

After eating we loaded up and Jeremy and Carole headed home (a five minute drive) with the horses while I waited for the BC to be calculated and announced. 

It turned out to be worth the wait as Mya took BC and Freebie was reserve BC!!! 

Lori Oleson, the ride manager did an awesome job putting this ride together and keeping it very organized.  The trail was tough but there was plenty of water, views, a photographer and much more.

Heather

We had a blast at the Championship 50 mile Race!  We took 3 horses.  I rode Makazin on the AERC Champioship 50 for the Lightweight division, as well as the FEI ride.  Jeremy rode ITA Chicashah Bey on the AERC Championship contending for the Middleweight division.  Tim rode Rising Heat on the FEI ride wothout being in the Championship ride, so that the horse could get his 1* rating. 

We arrived on Friday and hung out in the beautiful camp.  Our race was on Sunday so we had time to relax.  We drove up in our new truck that we have named the "Work horse".  Look for it sometime at a ride, you won't miss it as it is very large!  (It is a Freightliner type truck, air horn and all!)

On Saturday we rode and went for a run and then took a swim as there was a pool in camp.  This camp is a kids camp during the summer and has all the amenities you would want, showers, pool, volleyball court, ponds, an out door lodge for eating and WIFI!  Very cool.  It was extremely scenic as well.

On Sunday we rode Bey and Makazin together.  The first 13 miles went by as expected.  We arrived a few minutes behind the lead group and the vet check was uneventful.  From here you had a decent climb up over a mountain to the 34 mile vet check back at camp.  We were climbing this hill pretty fast.  Our slowest speed on my GPS read 9.5 MPH.  However, we were getting passed left and right!!  Jeremy and I felt like we had been in a space capsule and returned to Earth to find new astronomical speeds in Endurance riding!!  If people rode like this all of the time we would still be winning World Championships!!  When we reached the top of the mountain I asked how far ahead the leaders were and was told 12 mins.  Ok, I could deal with this, they climbed faster, no big deal. 

We went down the mountain as fast as we could safely go.  Jeremy and I would not have ridden faster no matter who we had been riding down this mountain.  Near the bottom it narrowed to single track and then got extremely rocky. We walked through the rocks and this is when Bey fell down and skinned both knees!  Damn it.

We got into the vet check and both horses recovered right away and then to our relief they both vetted just fine, even with Bey's knees cut up.

I then asked how far back we were and was told that we were 25+ mins back and that we were in 13th place!  This was unreal.  I later asked Ken Keele how he had made so much time coming into vet check 2 and he said that he and the other front runner were riding between 18 and 25 MPH!!  That made me feel better.

We decided to really let the horses rip on the last 13 miles.  There were 2 good climbs and lots of rolling terrain and then a knee knocker single track near the very end.

We galloped out of the vet check and 20+ mins later caught someone... unreal!!  We got to the number check and surprised another group of riders.  I think they figured we would stop to cool our horses but instead we just yelled our numbers, spun around and took off again.

We ended up doing the 13 miles in :50 mins.  We smoked the trail and it was fun.  We tied for 4th.   (We were 12 mins behind the eventual winner, Ken Keele)  We then had to do a 15 min CRI.  When we were checking the horses before going to the vet (as FEI has one chance for your completion to pass the vet exam) we discovered that Bey's knees were bothering him finally.  We never did get him sound and he was pulled at the finish.  Makazin however looked awesome.  His CRI was 48/48 after all of that speed.

Makazin ended up winning the FEI ride as well as getting Best Condition on the FEI ride and was also moved from 4th to 3rd as the original winner had been pulled at the finish as well for not recovering.  He was also the Reserve National Lightweight Champion horse.  Pretty exciting as this is the first time we have ever allowed Makazin to move out!

Rising Heat aka Razin finished his ride at 4:30 with Tim.  He looked fresh and got his CEI1* completion!!  Very cool. 

In all it was really a great weekend with the exception of Bey's misfortune.  Even the drive was pretty!

Victory!!  We took 7 horses to the Shine & Shine Only FEI * 50 and ** 75.  All 7 finished.  All but one horse were entered in the FEI rides.  The horses did awesome on the extremely mountainous course.  We also lucked out with the heat, it was very warm but not impossibly hot like it could have been.  The horse and rider teams on the FEI* 50 were, Fuego IA ridden by Tim Reynolds, TA Tiran ridden by Sarah Schick (who flew in from VA), Stratagem ridden by young rider Ildy Nadasdy, and Makazin ridden by Kim Danardis (who flew in from NY).  In the AERC open 50 was ITA Chicashah Bey ridden by Megan Doyle. 
On the FEI **75 we had two horses, My Mamselle ridden by Jeremy and Ssamiam ridden by myself.  All in all it was a great weekend.  I would like to thank all of our riders for doing a superb job of getting the gang through safe and sound. 

Wow,

I have not been writing or doing any computer related things in a long time.  We are still in the Bay Area and still house hunting.  I feel like we have had a temporary lifestyle for WAY too long now.  The endurance horses are doing great.  We have a wonderful group of 10.  This does not count Gem who is in foal and should bring a bundle of talent to us sometime in March 2010.  The 10 endurance horses include two 4 year olds so in reality we are dealing with 8 working race horses plus client horses.

All of the horses ran on the track with the exception of Rising Heat and Stratagem.  Fuego ran and then was used as a pony on the track which came in handy last weekend at the Redwood Ride where he handily caught a loose horse in the morning.

We will be taking 6 of the horses to the Shine & Shine FEI ride on Aug 8th.  This is a logistical joy for me:)  Any how we will have Fuego IA, Makazin, TA tiran and Stratagem on the 50 FEI *.  Ssamiam and My Mamselle will do the 75 FEI **.  It should be  great ride with a lot of hills and heat ( at least it won't be humid!)

Our friend Sara is flying out from VA to ride TA Tiran, Sara rode with us when we were back East and had many adventures with us back there (including driving a stick shift for the first time, which was the dually that she crewed for us out of at the Old Dominion ride.  Oh, did I mention it was raining and muddy.  She handled it like a champ!)

Well, we are off to Robinson Flat in the morning to crew for a long time friend Jeff Townsend and his great horse Seize the Breeze aka Breeze.  It should be a great time for all.

I will try to write much more frequently.

Heather

We have a website!!  It is so exciting.  So far so good.  We have been riding a lot.  On Valentine's Day we had a great ride on the beach with our good friends, Megan and Maddy.  We took four of our horses: Strut, Smitty, GT and Miles.  Smitty of course went way further and faster then the rest of us.  All of the horses did great and we didn't get rained on!!

Jeremy and I are working on getting a full endurance operation going in the Bay Area.  We are living in the Almaden area in South San Jose.  The hills are big and the weather is generally nice (although at the moment it is really wet!!

We have many horses in training and we are really looking forward to the 2009 season that is in progress.  Our first ride will be at the 20 Mule Team ride

I am now working at one of Skip's Tire and Auto shops doing accounting, then I train horses as well.  Jeremy is trimming and training.  He will be doing a clinic sometime very soon to teach people how to apply the glue on boots.  Overall we are pretty busy and that is fun.  We are also able to see a lot of good friends again, although we now miss all of our new friends... that's always the case isn't it?

Working in Southern CA at the vitamin company ended up being very beneficial as we have designed a great supplement for performance horses that will be available soon.  We have been racing with it and it is pretty darn cool.

I forgot to keep you all posted on how Wild Man did.  He was looking strong in the last turn but then ended up third!  He will now continue his racing.  He is in Texas now preparing for the next leg of the "triple crown" for Arabians.

I hope that I see all of you soon.

Heather