San Acacia ACTHA CTR

 

After Saturday’s fun trail ride in San Lorenzo Canyon, everyone went back to the old San Acacia Schoolhouse for a big potluck dinner, some great conversation and even some dancing. But we all had to get up early the next day to prepare for the Sweethearts of San Acacia Competitive Trail Ride (CTR), so me and my friends, Trish, Nancy, Shelley and her hubby Phil carpooled down a little farther south to Socorro to share two adjoining rooms at the Super 8 motel. We enjoyed another hour or two of laughter and good conversation pajama party style while my Dobbie Girl and Shelley and Phil’s fox terrier, Grommit had a little playtime, too. Then we hit the hay!

Got up the next morning, car pooled back up to San Acacia, and helped the competitors get registered, signed in and prepared for that day’s ACTHA CTR.

Many of us who were riding and judging that day were dressed up for the Valentine’s Day theme of the ride. I had bought a new helmet cover for the occasion. And something that has become a sort of requisite when I ride down there, is Dacodah posing for a photo wearing my blinged out helmet.

Doesn’t he look like a loverly polo jockey in this photo? lol!

Of course, with the Valentine’s Day theme of the ride, there was a contest for best decorated horse and rider, and many riders enjoyed prettying up their horses.

Like my friend Vicki and her guy Copper.

 

 

And Peggi, from Carlsbad, NM with her young fellow, Tuff. 

 

And Nancy from Corrales was sure to decorate her mare, Aspen, who is the Pet Mayor of Corrales.

Nancy was also all blinged out with her gorgeous hand-made All Seeing Eye chaps, made by talented New Mexico prison workers.

And my friend Melissa had way too much fun tormenting….um….decorating her beau, Pal…who wasn’t at all impressed to be wearing ribbons and roses.

“Stop laughing ladies. Mom…take this crap off of me now. Don’t you know guys aren’t supposed to dress this way?” (Notice the single nostril flare pointed at Melissa….this is an obvious ‘teed off horse’ sign similar to the human ‘finger in your face’ reaction)   

“I’m telling you people! You better not post these photos on Facebook or on one of those blog thingies!!”

(Ooops…sorry Pal!)

 

I did not take the following photo, but just had to share it because I was so excited that my friends Anne and Matt both decided to ride in that weekend’s ACTHA CTR. And this was Anne’s first ACTHA ride and she was riding it on her Clydesdale gelding, the famous Prince, that I’ve written about many times over the past few years. Apache is in love with him, too! And Matt was riding a brand new horse who did an amazing job on all of the obstacles. It was great to see them together at the CTR. 

 

 

Right after the Judges Briefing, four of us got saddled up and then headed out on the trail to find our obstacles. We had thought someone was going to lead us out, as we had no clue where we were going, except to follow the pink ribbons. We weren’t the only ones who were a little confused. See the rider out in front? She was actually a competitor and thought we were the first group of ACTHA competitors to head out, so she joined us all the way to the first obstacle…where she had to turn around and go back to the starting point again and wait for the competitor groups to finally head out when it was time…..like AFTER all the judges made it to their obstacles. lol!   

 

The four of us were relieved when Dacodah finally caught up to us right around the first obstacle. He also brought along several other judges and judge’s assistants that he was going to take to the 2nd and 3rd obstacles.

 

Soon after we dropped off the judges for obstacle #2, we hurried to obstacle #3, where we were able to look back and see the first group of competitors riding towards obstacle #2. Eeeek! We had to hurry!

 

 

We had a lot of steep up and downs going into and back out of arroyos, so we had to stop for a cinch check a couple times and Dacodah wanted to stop a few times and make sure the trail was clearly marked for the competitors by moving rocks to block other trails that led off into other directions off the main trail.

This young lady is my friend Randi. I’ve ridden with her several times and she offered to be mine and Trish’s Judges’ Assistant that day. 

 

 

The guy in front of me in the arroyo, his name is Robert. He drove up from Carlsbad with his wife Peggi for the ACTHA ride, but he wasn’t competing. Instead he offered to help us out at Trish’s and my obstacles, by handing out poker cards for the Poker Jackpot that was also going on in addition to the CTR. (See the pink ribbon on the bush on the left?)

 

 We had a lot of fun riding out to our obstacle. In the past when I’ve judged for an ACTHA CTR, the judges are usually transported via truck or ATV. So it was a real treat to get to ride the entire ACTHA trail for this event. The trail itself was just shy of 7 miles and our obstacles were #4 and #5, so we had to ride at least 5 miles just to reach our obstacles.

 

We did do some trotting and a little cantering, but I wish we could have done more. We needed to hurry up to get to our obstacle before the competitors caught up with us. But Randi was too nervous about making her horse move faster, so Dacodah kept us at a steady walk for most of those 5 miles instead. It was still fun, but I just really wanted to get to our obstacle to get it set up and not feel rushed if competitors showed up and had to wait for us. (See the pink ribbon on the left?)

 

At one point when we rode up and out of an arroyo, we flushed out a herd of mule deer.

 

The mule deer weren’t scared, just curious and they peeked at us as we rode by. The horses looked, but didn’t really care about the deer much at all.

 

We finally made it to our obstacles, which were actually two obstacles in one: A Down…and an Up. Shelley and Dacodah had named them the Dipa Coaster!

Both were completely natural obstacles that a rider could expect to encounter on a trail here in the desert southwest.

To let us experience our obstacles, Dacodah invited us to each take a turn. Dacodah went first, followed by Robert, then me, then Randi, and then finally by Trish. The obstacle was pretty intimidating when you first walked up to it…..it looks far steeper when you are looking down. Trish got a little nervous which made her horse nervous, too. 

 

But soon, Trish and her horse had made it down and were on their way back up. Yay!

 

We found an old fence and tied up our horses, so we could focus on judging our obstacles. 

 

We all pulled out the Valentine’s Day decorations from my saddle bags and busily set out to decorating our obstacles. And very quickly our first group of competitors showed up. There’s my friend Theresa on her famous German Warmblood/Lipizzan gelding, Zeema! America’s Favorite Trail Horse Competitors, too!

 

Then it was time for Trish and I to slip and slide down into the arroyo where we could better judge both the up side and the down side.

 

 Dacodah took this photo of one of the competitors, who both did a wonderful job. You can see me down there on the left judging Obstacle #4. And Trish is just out of sight, over on the far right, judging Obstacle #5.

In the photo below you can see my friend Anne, on Prince her Clydesdale, heading down Obstacle #4. They were my favorite competitors for the day, not just because Anne is my friend and I adore Prince, but also because they completed Obstacles #4 and #5 with such calmness and were truly a team. For as huge as Prince is, he delicately made his way down and up those obstacles, carefully taking care of Anne the entire way.

 

Dacodah being silly at the top of the Dipa Coaster.

 

And here Trish and I were being silly in return. lol!

 

 

Dacodah took some videos of our obstacle, and here’s one of them, so you can get a better idea of the type of terrain and challenge that it presented to the competitors.

 

Finally after about an hour and a half, the last of the competitors made it through our obstacle, and we could pack up and head back to the ARA Base Camp to get all of the competitors scores entered into the ACTHA Database. It was a good thing, too, because the arroyo didn’t offer much protection from the wind and instead acted like a Wind Tunnel.  And by the end, the wind had really picked up and it had gotten much colder, too.

I was pretty cold by this point and had all of my layers on, including 1 short sleeve shirt, 2 long sleeve shirts, a fleece turtleneck, a fleece vest and my double layered fleece jacket. I looked like an Oompa Loompa! lol! 

 

The horses had all stood patiently tied for over an hour and a half. But by the time the bitter wind started gusting at 35-45 mph, they were ready to high tail it back home and warm up with some grain and hay. To say that the horses were pretty hyped up is putting it mildly. Splendor says, “Cut it out with the picture taking and let’s go already!”

 

The wind was horrible on the way back. I had forgotten to bring my ear muffs, so my ears were numb from the ice cold wind and we were riding straight into it, too. Thankfully we cantered back almost the entire way, but Randee’s horse got a little too excited, especially when Randee would try to slow her down, and she ended up bucking her off. I was relieved that she landed in soft, deep sand, and she wasn’t hurt. But after that Dacodah switched horses with her and he rode the bucking mare back instead. Of course, she didn’t give Dacodah any trouble and we kept a fast steady pace back.

 

When we came to the final obstacle #6, even Splendor was prancy, snorty and excited. This obstacle was a Stand Still challenge where riders had to stand near the distracting tractor for 60 seconds without moving. But the tractor wasn't the only distraction. First there was the gusting wind with dust devils blowing through, and if you notice in the background, there was also a Team Roping practice going on there, too! Talk about exciting!

 

We all had to ride past the Team Roping practice, which caused most of our horses to be high-headed and wide eyed, while calling out to the horses tied up to the trailers beside the arena.

I didn’t take any photos as we rounded the corner and walked alongside the horse trailer as I wanted to be ready for anything. lol! Thankfully, everyone was well behaved and the passing was mostly uneventful. I was kind of wishing we could have went over to watch the Team Roping, though.

 

On the way back we rode on a dirt road until a car forced us to dip down into a hay field for a short while. And then we rode back up once they passed us, and we finished up the last half mile or so riding on the ditch banks, all the way back to the ARA Base Camp in San Acacia.

Here’s a video I took, just to give a little idea of how horribly windy it was on that last stretch. We trotted most of the way back, and I enjoyed listening to Splendor’s steady clip clopping on the hard-packed dirt ditch bank.