I had a wonderful ride at Cooley Ranch, which is a 19,000 acre ranch that is much of the watershed serving Lake Sonoma in Northern California. The ranch is just covered with big oaks, green grass, and creeks. We crossed a creek almost every few minutes! Ride Managers Cynthia Ariosta and Forrest Tancer did a wonderful job organizing the ride. The 50 had 71 riders and the 25 had 31 riders.
I rode Instant Kharma (“Savannah”, Appendix-Quarter horse) in Renegades and she finished strongly, constantly passing other horses and we finished 10th. I was very impressed with how strong she finished, considering all the steep hills (my GPS showed over 4000 feet) and also that I had not ridden her more than a few times since last fall, as I was not even planning to ride this horse this year but my thoroughbred just wasn’t ready.
Savannahis a “hot” horse. There’s no need for an accelerator, only brakes are needed. In order to move at a more “sane” pace at the start, we walked up to the start a few minutes late after all the horses were gone. It worked pretty well, as she was not exactly relaxed, but certainly not nuts as in the past. Last year at the Mt. Diablo 50, I tried riding her with the front runners but was concerned about the pace at the start and tried to slow her down. Well, she was not going to let those other horses leave her, so she dumped me, left me, and passed the front runners! It was 1hr and 10 minutes later that I joined up with her again when another rider, Terry Reilly, riding Mustang Sally, found her on the trail on her way back to camp and ponied her to me.
Thanks Gina & Kirt for the excellent technical assistance with the Renegade® glue-ons and strap-ons. I’m glad that we made the transition (winter 2008/2009) to barefoot/boots.
Gordon Frazier
Auburn, CA