Failed Brakes

The Pine Tree 50 mile endurance ride is coming up fast. This was the last weekend that I wanted to do a long conditioning ride with Luke as I wanted him to have the rest of the week off to rest up for the ride. I had planned to go ride with my friend Vicki in Hartford last weekend and wimped out due to a weather forecast of rain. Which didn't happen until late in the day. So, we rescheduled for this Friday. We wanted to get an early start so we could get in a good long ride. Thunder storms were predicted for later in the day, not that we trusted the forecast..... but still thought an early ride would be best. It is a little over an hours drive for me to get to Vicki's house so I got the morning off work at Upper Pond Stable. I planned to leave my house by 7:30 am.

I was up early and took care of Luke and Marie, had a quick breakfast and then got Luke and loaded him up. I just started to pull out of my parking spot and remembered I had not raised my jack all the way. I put my foot on the break pedal and it went all the way to the floor! ACK, no breaks! I knew right away I'd blown a break line. I promptly backed back into my parking spot, unloaded Luke and put him back out in the pasture and called Vicki and let her know that once again, I was not going to be able to ride with her. Bummer! Praise God I was not out on the road when it happened! I know there are more other ways to stop a truck such as the emergency brake and the brake controller unit for the trailer. But out on the road you might realize too late that you have a problem. I called my mechanic and he told me to bring the truck right in and he'd get to it as soon as he could. I called my dad and he followed me as I carefully drove it over to the garage.

Once back home, after a quick stop at Enterprise Farm for special mule food (Luke insists he can only eat Safe Choice grain) and dog food, I gave Susie a call to see if she was planning to ride today. It turned out she and Linda were planning to ride. They had no solid plan on where they were riding so were kind enough to come over to my house to ride since I was now grounded. They arrived a little after 10:30.

We headed out in the direction of Tarr's Mill but on the way decided to ride out to the John Tarr Rd. and around that loop. Just before the beaver pond we came upon a snapping turtle in the trail. Luke kept a close ear on that when it started moving out of our way. "Rocks" aren't supposed to walk around you know! We got out to the tar road and rode up that a short way and then back onto the trail. They have been logging in the area of this trail and things looked so different. An old trail that had been blocked by logging years ago, looked to now be passable and we decided to explore it and see if we could now get through. There were a few minor wet spots but overall it was pretty good going. When we were nearly to the end and out to the main trail, we came to a very funky looking wet spot. I got off Luke to explore on foot to see if the ground was solid enough for the equines. It turned out to be just fine and we made it thorough with no problem. One of those weird spots that looks bad but isn't.

From there we rode the main trail straight down to the Dead  River Rd. On this trail there is a metal grate bridge that the equines do NOT like crossing. Susie and Linda got off and led Bayzen and Gus across. I stayed on Luke and followed them across. Luke tippy toed across. I don't know how its' possible for an equine to tippy toe but Luke did. I was just pleased he went across with no big fuss and didn't try to lay down on the bridge like he did the first time we crossed it! (I don't know what he was thinking...) We crossed Dead River and went up the South Adams road to the trail that comes out behind my house. On this trail they are also logging and the trail was a bit of a mess and a little hard to follow. It was passable and we made it though the logged area.

When we got back from the ride we checked Luke and the horses heart rate with Susie's new hand held heart rate monitor. We did it as soon as we got back and got tack off. Luke was at 56, Gus 54. I can't remember what Bayzen was but he had more time to pulse down as we had to get a bit of water to put on him first. So, while I was disappointed at not having been able to ride with Vicki, I did end up having a very good ride after all.