Result!

Here is a report from Karens weekend, Karen was using Easyboot glue ons and Easyboot gloves on Looey, and had a great time by the sound of it!
"We had a fab weekend up in North Yorkshire…here's the story…
We travelled up to North Yorkshire after work on Friday evening. On route we stopped in Thirsk for a chippy supper. It's amazing how you end up meeting people. I was stood waiting for Bond to come back to the Land Rover and this couple and their daughter, who were from Norway on holiday came over for a chat. They were laughing because they have horses themselves and said that while travelling through Yorkshire they hadn't seen 1 horse, only sheep and cows!! When they saw our trailer they came over to have a chat to some fellow horsey people - obviously getting withdrawal symptoms ;-). They then spotted Bond's sign writing on his Landover - Pennine Barefoot - and asked what we were doing with the horse. I told them we were on our way to an Endurance Event. It turns out that they use Easy Boots on their horse too!! They had tried Boa's but thought the EasyBoots were way better - what a small world. We gave them directions to the event and they said they might try and pop over to have a look at hat was going on at some point over the weekend.
By the time we got to the venue it was going dark and had started raining. We quickly set up a corral for Loo and had a bit of a blether to a guy from Ambleside who was crewing for his wife the following day in our class. The rain didn't stop all night - I woke at about 5.30am since we were sleeping in the trailer and the rain was pelting it big time. I lay there for the next 2 hours praying for it to stop - it didn't. Our vetting was carried out in a torrential down pour - the forecast said it would be sunny with a few scattered showers! However, by the time we'd tacked up and I'd got on board, the sun came out and it stayed like that for the rest of the day. The farrier who checks all the horses shoes/hooves/boots before starting was convinced the glue-ons would get "sucked off" in all the Yorkshire clay - so off we went to prove him wrong.

Looey was in top form - I'd been warned about a potential "Nike Effect" with the glue-ons from some fellow Endurance Riders who have just started to try them on their horse. Yep, Loo was pinging along with a spring in his step. The endurance rides in North Yorkshire are never a doddle - plenty of hills and varied going of bridleways, farm tracks, field edges, forestry, moorland and a wee bit of roadwork. The views are stunning - I managed to appreciate them on the 2nd 42km loop when Looey had chilled out a bit! The class we had entered was the Drover's Dash 85km ride. It wasn't a endurance race but the class was going to be judged based on the "performance formula" where points are awarded using a calculation based on final resting HR and average speed. This makes it a bit more interesting - being  a wee bit competitive, it means that I was trying to keep our speed up but not take too many risks incase he tweaked himself. The going on the first 42km loop was very slippy - this part of Yorkshire hadn't seen as much rain as we had in Lancashire - the ground was still quite hard, but with all the overnight rain, it had made the surface very slick. It did make riding a more difficult. The worst bit was the last section which had a lot of red clay - it was like a skating rink - I had to ride very tactically and choose the bits with the best traction - Looey nearly lost all 4 feet on a couple of occasions and I nearly went out the side door! We rode the first 42km all on our on - we caught sight of a couple of riders just in front but never caught up with them.

After the first 42km loop we had to go through a vetgate - I wanted to get Looey's HR under 64 ASAP since this is a good way of making up time - the clock keeps ticking until you vet. We untacked him, threw a load of water on him to cool him down and I took his HR which was 60. So we presented to the vet in 4 minutes. We had a break of 30 minutes in which Loo munched on his oats and sugar beet and then we were back out on the same 42km loop. We had caught up to riders who'd been just within view in front of me since Looey had vetted so quickly. We ended up riding along together for the rest of the ride, taking it in turns to lead when the horse in front had switched off. The ground had dried out a lot since the morning which made life a bit easier. When we got back to the venue, we had a 30 minute wait until we had to go to the vetting. . Looey looked fine, so we let him drink and eat and kept walking him round periodically to prevent any stiffness setting in. I also massaged his hamstrings since there were plenty of hills, so he had worked hard. The vetting was a nerve-wrecking experience. The 2 riders I'd ridden with vetted first. 3 vets were watching the horses trot up and they each wrote on a piece of paper whether the horse was lame or not, this was then handed to the Technical Steward who told the rider whether the majority thought their horse was sound - a 3 card trick!! The 2 horses were considered to be lame! It was Loo's turn - his heart rate was under 64, so that's a pass - next was the trot up and then the stomach churning wait for the verdict - it was a unanimous decision - he'd PASSED!! Phew….!!!

So, then we had to await the results of the Performance Formula at the prize-giving. We'd come 3rd out of 7 starters - icing on the cake…the class was sponsored by Bailey's, so we received a feed voucher as well as our rosettes. I was really impressed with Looey on this ride. He answered all the questions I asked of him and completed at a speed of 13.8kph which is pretty good for a challenging ride like this. He's still a young endurance horse and has lots of developing to do yet but he improves on each ride. The glue-ons stayed on and got lots of attention from fellow competitors - including those who shoe their horses. Interestingly, the farrier was seen out on course on a number of occasions, nailing shoes on horses who'd lost them in the sticky, slippy going.
The ride itself was extremely well organised. Heidi Lewis had lots of volunteers opening gates and manning check points. The landowners had gone out of their way to move stock for the weekend, so that gates could be left open and there were lots of them!
And finally, a big "Thank-you" to Trelawne Equine - your advice and sponsorship are really helping to make it happen for us this year!"

Thank you from Trelawne Equine for being such a great ambassador for Barefoot horses and hoof boots