Okay now where was I? ..... Oh yeah, I'd just finished the amazing Shore to Shore in Michigan riding 150 miles in 4 days.

Well from there it was back to work and conditioning. The following weekend we had 2 working students come for the week at my parents' farm - Heather and Steph. Heather's mom used to come stay with us when we were teenagers as her parents bought her a pony from us and later she sent the pony's son to us to be broke and shown.

What a week that was the girls rode every style of riding, drove a bit, came and played with me and the drafts at work and Steph took some amazing photos every time she turned around - she's taking photography at college/university.

The next weekend I was ride secretary for Flesherton CTR. Mother rode the 32 mile CTR on Loosi and was doing fine until 2 miles from home on the last loop when Loosi decided that CTR speed was not fast enough so she bolted, mother lost a stirrup and bounced off landing on her fanny pack containing her electrolyte bottle and syringe but still held on to Loosi. Many of the pit crews there assisted my mom (thank you!) and desite the nasty fall and cracking her helmet (no concussion thank goodness) insisted in being put back on to finish the ride.

The pit crews came and found me at base camp so I was able to meet them at the finish line and put mother in the shade to recover while I made sure Loosi met the 4 minute pulsing and vetting 1/2 hr later. While I was doing this a nurse checked out my mom - no concussion, just bruising.

They placed 3rd Lightweight!!

Four days later, the next time I had daylight and energy to ride and mother was able to clean her own stalls, I went out for 10 miles on Loosi. Well guess what, the known runaway tried that stunt again - bolting less than 1/2 mile from home headed towards a busy highway. Well I managed to not give in and at least now we can steer the runaway - when I first got her you couldn't. After slaloming a few 100 feet to get past deep ditches, fences, stones and trees we had a bit of open space heading into the neighbours bean field well guess where we aimed. After trying to run in knee deep soybeans Loosi slowed down and I got her stopped. Needless to say we went back out to where the "incident" happened and trotted and stopped every few feet. Backing up when the stop wasn't as fast as I thought it should be.

For the next 2 weeks it took us 2 hours of stop and go, heading out and coming home every 10 mile conditioning ride, This is what I originally did back in 2003 and every spring since then to get control out on trail.

Next came the test! A 50 mile Endurance ride at Essa. With a rawhide noseband attached to the breastplate with fancy blue balertwine as a tiedown we headed out at the end of the 50 mile horses. A couple of times I had to pull off trail and face backwards as other riders who had stopped to help a downed rider (slipped on driveway sealer within 1/2 mile of start) passed us. I finally was last just behind the trail boss who was correcting markers as we went. Dense fog and a slight change in the trail from the previous year made seeing some of the white streamers interested, especially through misted glasses.

Coming into home base at the 1/2 way mark, 2 riders that we had passed at the out vet check came galloping past us. Loosi was not allowed out of a long trot despite her attempts to race. All going well.

We went out on 3rd loop by ourselves and were able to relax a bit. 4th loop saw us cantering out in the open, under control almost back to "normal". No tie down on for last 2 loops and we came into both vet checks at a trot with no problems. Thank goodness!!

Game plan for Appaloosa National Championship Endurance Ride back in place. Alternate plan to just finish was shelved.