Sunday April 26 2026
Plans changed big time for the first ride of the 2026 season. I had Hillbillie Willie ready for a 50 at Antelope Island in Utah to start off the year. He’d never ridden on the island, and since I’d ridden it once long ago with Dudley, I knew this would be the perfect trail for him, and he was fit and ready.
Then two weeks before the ride (April 18-19), it was cancelled (postponed to October). Because of bugs! The dreaded gnat hatch was two weeks early due to a warm winter and little precipitation. For me the bugs - no-see-ums, gnats, mosquitoes - are always bad anyway at the island any time of year; I am a bug magnet. Even a human race was cancelled two weekends before the horse ride because it was so bad.
So, our ride plans changed. Next up was Eagle Canyon on April 25-6 almost in our back yard, at Eagle, Idaho in the foothills. And when I say foothills, that is one hilly ride. It can be a tough first ride of the year for any horse, and it’s real tough ride for a flat-lander Standardbred for his first ride of the year. I have yet to ride Willie on a 50 at Eagle and I probably won’t. I know my horse and that is not his kind of 50-mile ride. So, we’d ride a 25-miler on day 2, and I’d shoot day 1.
Two years earlier, when I used a 25-miler at Eagle to start the season, Willie had a hind end tightness after loop 1 and got pulled, so…. there was that to worry about, because I always have to find things to worry about.
And as always with Willie, I never know what I’m going to have underneath me when we start a ride. He might be calm, he might be on crack. He’s 14 now! You’d think he’d be predictable and calm by now. Saturday afternoon I took him on a short warm-up ride, a mile up to the water tank, where he was calm and forward and didn’t whinny once for his three BFFs back in camp. But on the way back, although he kept it to a walk, he felt ready to explode. Oh boy!
When Connie decided to ride her horse DWA Barack, Willies BBFF (Bestest Best Friend Forever), on the 25 on day 2 and we’d ride together, I knew it was going to be an easy start and a fun day! Willie and Barack hadn’t done a ride together in two years.
Connie pic!
Sunday morning we let most of the riders go out ahead of us, or at least we thought we did, because Barack hadn’t done a ride in almost a year, and Connie always has to be aware and alert riding him. Both boys started out smoothly and calmly, a nice working trot a half mile up a gentle hill till we hit the trails and the real hills. Willie was sooooooo happy to be with his BBFF!
We mostly had a nice bubble on the first 12.5 mile loop, cruising up and down the hills at a steady trot, both horses moving out and having fun. Not quite competing, but powering each other on. The hills were mostly still green from late spring rains, and though they’d had a downpour about a week earlier, there were only a couple of little boggy areas that were easy to negotiate. I always start Willie in a ride in his kemberwick bit in case I need brakes, but today he didn’t pull on me at all, because whyever would he want to get away from his beloved bro Barack!
I put Willie’s beautiful jaquima halter (made by Maria Phillips) on for his second loop, and again we just cruised along the trails, trotting on the rare flats and up hills, and walking down, sometimes dismounting on the steeper downhills. We passed a great horned owl nest with three babies spilling out of the nest. Two water crossings were unusually high, and Barack briefly thought about taking a bath in one of them, while Willie had a splash fest.
Very well-fed cows wandered everywhere, fat from green grass and trail marking ribbons that ride manager Layne and co had to keep going out and replacing. Only one corner through a homestead was missing ribbons at the turn - and it was only our loop’s colors because cows apparently think the green and orange ribbons taste best - but we knew where we were going. We hollered at a rider ahead of us several times to get her back on the right trails.
We let the boys trot right on into the finish, to see what their pulses would be and how long it would take for them to pulse down to 60. Barack was first down, a minute before Willie, and we found out we’d come in 3rd and 4th. We’d thought we were back near 10th or so!
Willie ended up getting both high vet score and Best Condition, with a CRI of 44-40, a fine start to the season. Go Standardbred!!!!
Next up: Aiming for a 50 at City of Rocks end of May!
connie pic here and up top!
Lovely. Congratulations.
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