2025 Old Salem Part II: Cruising the 50 on Day One

August 30 2025

Hillie Willie and I would be riding Day 1's 50-miler with his BF (Best Frenemy) DWA Papillon. Pappy and Connie were entered in the AHA Arabian championship 50, so her goal was to top 10 in that division. She was going to let Pappy move out faster than he usually does, and Willie is long-strided enough and fit enough now that he he and Pappy should easily be able to cruise along together at that speed. It turned out to be Willie’s very comfortable moving-out pace.

Pappy got to lead because he gets really wound up if Willie trots beside him or too close behind him, and Pappy was really wound up at the start anyway because he thinks he’s a racehorse, which he never was, but he could’ve been, and he was out to conquer everybody in front of him. 

But after the first couple of miles, we ended up in this beautiful Bubble (nobody close in front or behind us) that lasted almost the entire first 25 mile loop. It was glorious. The day was glorious. The footing glorious. It was a cool morning, not smoky, the trails were perfect from Wednesday’s rains, and our horses ate up those two-track winding logging roads. We had a blast and got the 25-mile loop done in three hours.

Willie felt fabulous and strong the whole loop. But strangely, when we trotted out for Dick the vet, I thought I saw a slight bobble or two of his head as I glanced sideways, and Dick said there was something going on and he waved Joe the vet over to watch him trot out again. Oh dear! So I trotted Willie out again, and this time he was better, and Dick and Joe could not pinpoint what or where the "something" was, and it wasn’t consistent. Connie saw it, and she said she didn't know what that was. Never seen it before. Dick asked me to come back before we went out on the second loop and I said absolutely, I wouldn’t take my horse back out on a 25 mile loop if he was at all questionable. 

During the vet check I purposely didn’t try to find any stiff muscles, and I didn’t walk him around at all, just let him eat and rest and drink, because if there was anything going on, I wanted it to show up when I trotted him out again. When we went back for a trot out before we left on the second loop, Dick and the vet Robert watched him trot out, and said maybe they saw something and maybe not, but it was much much better, if it was even there at all. Dick said I could go out. I said I’d start out and if I felt anything I’d turn right around.

Well. I tried for 10 miles to find any kind of bad step or anything, and I couldn’t find one. So then I just quit worrying about it, and we had another great loop. We had a Bubble for a while, then lost it when four riders caught up with us and we played leapfrog for a while, and Pappy got all wound up again, and Willie got a bit wound up. I'd switched him to his jaquima halter for this loop, but he wasn’t uncontrollable, so that was good. We kept moving along at a good pace, and finally got a comfortable Bubble again ahead of the riders for the last part of the loop.

I still couldn't feel a single bad step, and Willie felt so strong and powerful. I am so amazed at this horse at how easily he just cruises along, and how he really seems to like it.

We finished that loop in 3 1/2 hours, and because there was a kerfuffle with trail markings, quite a few people ahead of us missed the correct trail unfortunately. We almost did, but we figured it out right away, fortunately. So that’s how we ended up in fifth and sixth places. And honestly, I couldn’t give a hoot about where I finish, I just want to complete my rides with a sound and healthy horse. In the end, nobody remembers where you finish, it doesn’t matter. The healthy sound horse matters.

I was holding my breath for the trot out, but Willie looked perfect. Another 50-mile finish for Hillbillie Willie. 

Go Standardbred!!!

So, during the ride when I thought my horse might end up lame, I thought, just let us get a completion on this ride, and we won’t do anymore this weekend. But on the second loop when my horse felt so strong, and didn’t take a single bad step, I thought we might do an LD on day two and/or day two and three. I would trot out for the vet in the morning and see if he could see anything. And of course if I started and felt anything at all, I'd just turn around back to camp.

Also, there was still that rooster chicken hanging around ridecamp. He made himself right at home front and center stage during the ride meeting and dinner.

**top photo by Steve Bradley** 
We let Pappy get a ways ahead of us before I let Willie go by Steve. He shifted to High Gear Pace to catch Pappy, so yeah that's his racing pace in the photo!

2025 Old Selam Part I: Before the Ride

Friday August 29 2025

I learned a lot!

Originally my lofty goal was to ride three days of 50s at Old Selam. This is one of my favorite rides ever, mostly along soft-footing old logging roads, gentle ups and downs with just a few climbs/downhills, ample water, and the lovely Boise National Forest, with the occasional wildlife sightings. More to come on that!

Willie was fit, from rides and from spending several weeks at the DWA Arabians spa in Bellevue with Helen, where I got to go up and ride him a couple times on some really good training rides. So he was ready. The question was me in the heat, and as the ride got closer, and the forecast showed it was going to get hotter each day, I decided to do a 50 on day one and then play the rest by ear. I just can’t handle the heat this year.

The three days of the ride would be Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We arrived on Wednesday. Wednesday afternoon ride manager Debbie asked me if I could go out with her and help mark a little bit of trail on foot that was left to mark on one of the loops (I'm always up for hiking and marking trail). 

We went out on the ATV and checked some things, but ran out of daylight, so Thursday morning we went back out. She dropped me off at a spot and I had about a 2-mile hike of marking trail, and then I would meet her back on the road.

I ambled along the lovely, cool forest, which smelled so great because we’d had a great downpour the day and night before. It was so misty riding on the ATV that my glasses stayed fogged up. I hiked along hanging ribbons, keeping my eyes out for moose, and while I was hiking along a creek thick with willows, I came around the corner and WHOA, there on the hillside was the biggest moose I have ever seen.

It wasn’t just huge, it was HYUGE, a big bull moose, up the hill about 40 yards away, and he turned to look at me. (Of course I'm on foot so it looked even bigger, but. it was HYUGE.) OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I needed the moose to leave because my trail went below him, and I couldn’t hike all the way back to where I started. but how the heck do you move a HYUGE bull moose?? 

So, I crept forward to behind a lodgepole pine that had a trunk about a foot wide, and I started yelling and whistling at Mr. Moose. I hollered and I whistled myself blue in the face, and all he did was look my way and tried to zero in on me. I figured if he moved anywhere, he was going to move down to the trail and on into the willows. At least I *hoped* he would. 

But instead, he started moving towards me! OMG. My heart started thumping really hard. I made myself very very small behind this tree and I shut up. He knew something was behind the tree. 

And then he moved closer!!! OMG!!! I looked up this tree to see if I might be able to climb it if I had to, and believe me I could have if I had to. He moved even closer to within about 20 yards of me and I stopped breathing. And I prayed a couple of times. Keep moving to the creek. Keep moving to the creek.

I was trying to rack my brain as to what I knew about moose. I knew they hated dogs. I thought they didn’t like people, but I wasn’t sure. Later, Robert Ribley told me a scary story about nearly being attacked by a moose, and then Anne told me about a moose encounter she had where (long story) she suddenly found herself in front of a moose in her driveway, and she did the only thing that came to mind, which was to drop down and curl up and play dead like you do for a grizzly bear (turns out this instinct is a good choice). The moose actually came and sniffed her face while her eyes were watching its hooves before it wandered off.

I had an idea that moose couldn’t see very well, but that couldn’t stop him from getting irritated at whatever was spying on him from behind the tree. He crept a few feet closer, and I would inch around the tree trunk, trying to stay very skinny.

Finally, thank the Lord, he turned down to the creek and trotted on into the thick willows. I waited a little bit and got back to breathing normally, then I made a big wide swerve up the hill and around where he had been. OMG!!!!!!!!!

So then, Debbie picked me up on the ATV and we continued on with her driving and me hanging the ribbons, and we came to a creek crossing, which we drove into just fine and out of, but going up the other side was a short steep, super soft few lengths of sand. I saw that and said I’m skeered, and I jumped off! (I am afraid of ATVs if the road is not completely flat .) 

Debbie tried to gun it up, but the sand was too soft and the four wheeler just dug four deep holes. So we were stuck, and stuck good. But. Debbie was smart enough to have had a winch installed on that ATV, so I got to learn about winching an ATV! 

We tried one tree and then had to get a different angle and used another tree, and then had to move the winch hook to a third tree, but the winch was two inches too short, but Debbie had two belts for padding the tree and connected them together with a steel carabiner. I stayed far away in case something snapped and broke, but by golly Mighty Red the ATV got winched up that little hill with Deb nursing/steering it along and out of that sand and we hopped back on and kept on marking trail! I may never have to winch an ATV out of a spot again, but I know how now!

But we weren’t quite done with adventure. We had one more creek to cross, but it was more like a dammed up beaver pond, and with all the rain we had, the water was quite high, so it wasn’t even possible to lift your feet high enough and keep them dry because the ATV was like halfway under water, but Deb just gunned it, and Mighty Red swam and got through there, but coming out of the pond, OMG, the wheels grasped for traction in the mud, and there was a little hill, and the ATV did a wheelie, and I thought I was going to die, but before I could get too skeered and bail off we were out. Booya!!!! I hate ATVs but I love Mighty Red!

The rest of the day was pretty much boring, just the usual, vetting in my horse and getting ready for riding the next day!

Also, there was a semi tame rooster chicken hanging around ride camp central.