TRAP Tails. Chair Chatter! January 2012

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1 TRAP Tails Trail Rider Awards Program California State Horsemen s Assoc. Chair Chatter! I m sitting here and it s a cold windy day with rain coming - finally! We really can t complain it s been great riding weather and I ve been taking advantage of it. However, I think Buddy has been praying to the rain gods! The farrier was here on Tuesday and he was amazed how worn out Buddy s shoes were! He said I m just about his only client that gets their money worth because one was worn through at the toe! I also need to catch up on all the trails database input that I ve been slacking off on. I ve been very busy with TRAP renewals! Boy, you guys are great! I have received 96 renewals and 23 new members so far for 2012! However, there are still approximately 70 from last year that have not yet renewed. If you have not sent your renewal in, please get it in before January 31st so you don t lose any hours in A few months ago I asked for article on What I did this summer. In this issue you will find a fun article from Angela Materne, she s been a busy lady! Also in this issue is an article on a more serious note. Diane Offutt sent in an account of a recent accident and what can be learned from the incident. Happy riding and see you down the trail! Marie January 2012 Inside this issue: Chair Chatter 1 Awards Presented 2 Welcome 2 Newsletter Contributors 2 Upcoming Trail Events 2 TRAP Renewals Due 2 What I Did ThisSummer 3 Good Ride / Bad Ride 5 TRAP on Facebook 7 Contact Information 7 Oh well, Buddy will get a vacation once it starts raining, then we will both lose our figures :) I will be putting those rainy days to good use. I will be scanning all the paper logs received in 2011 so I can save electronic copies instead of keeping all that paper. I m running out of storage space!

2 Page 2 Chevrons & Awards Congratulations to the following riders presented with awards since the last issue! Awarded in January 2012 Peggy Cole, Region 12, 2,000 Hours Tracie Ahlberg, Region 13, 300 Hours Taylor Flevares, Region 13, 300 Hours Jeane Kennedy, Region 4, 100 Hours Bob Toynbee, Region 4, 100 Hours Cindy Giacomini, Region 13, 200 Hours Awarded in December 2011 Vicki Dawson, Region 1, 100 Hours Julie Graham, Region 2, 300 Hours Welcome to our new TRAP members, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact either your Region or State TRAP chair. Jan Darryl Deaton, Region 2 Jennifer Garcia, Region 3 Angie Moreland, Region 3 Kimberly D'Amelio, Region 1 UPCOMING TRAIL EVENTS I guess the year is winding down I have not received notice of any upcoming trail events. To have your trail event posted here and on the TRAP website, information to: Newsletter Contributors Special thanks to Angela Materne of Region 5 and Diane Offutt of Region 5 for contributing to this month s newsletter. You can see from these articles that just about anything goes! Please share your adventures with your fellow TRAP riders and send me items and pictures! 2012 TRAP Renewals Due Remember, TRAP renewals for 2012 are due by January 1st! reminders were sent out mid January. If your renewal is not received by February 1st any hours reported in 2012 prior to the date your renewal is received will not count. So avoid all the confusion and send your renewal in ASAP! Attached is a renewal form. Thanks to all of those that have already sent them in!

3 Page 3 What I did on my Summer vacation. Angela Materne, Region 5 In May, my aunt Maura Padilla and I went on a poker ride with the Gold country Horsemen s Association at Lake Pardee. I rode the spastic Arabian for four hours on the Coast to Crest trail. I live nearby and I ride the trail frequently, but never as far as I had on that day and I didn t know that it became a single track through a canyon with the springtime Mokelumne River raging hundreds of feet below. I also don t know how to play poker, but I had three kings and a pair of fours, and they gave me the prize money. Shortly after that ride, we had the EHV-1 outbreak and the predicted end of the world, and all the gymkhanas were canceled or postponed So I did some non-horsey summer things: I went to the Jumping Frog Jubilee, the demolition derby, ate some funnel cake, took a hike at Big Trees State Park One day, I was talking to Jen Sanders (Region 5 Gymkhana chair, also benched by the EHV-1) and she said that she had never been to Yosemite. Well, there was no doubt that we needed to go immediately. And then she said, I don t hike when I can ride. And so, the adventure began! I knew that you could haul your own horses in, but there wasn t much information online, and an from a park staff member didn t tell me much more. We decided that we would ask when we arrived. We loaded up the horses and hit the road. I really think that Mapquest should have a hauling a trailer option because it sent us up the steep and winding Hwy And no matter what your Tom Tom says, DO NOT take a horse trailer up Old Priest Grade. Trust me on that one! We finally made it into the park (brakes smoking and Jen feeling faint did I mention that her truck is a stick shift?) and stop at the ranger station to get some advice. Long story short, we stopped and waited in line at three different ranger stations to try and get information before we finally decided to just park somewhere and saddle up. The good thing is that it was early June and there was plenty of parking, so long as you didn t mind standing in water. Based on the information we were given, we knew that we were allowed to ride almost anywhere on the map with a dash dash dash and that there was a Horses only trail that paralleled the Mist Trail where the park had guided mule rides. We decided to head there first Angela and Pony A real Water Horse! The Horse Only Trail I learned a lot of things very quickly I could not ride my new horse (new, as in, technically, first ride) with one hand and that reading a map is a lost art. Also, that she doesn t like mules. At all. And that the person riding the mule might not speak English. And that a draft mule has a head the size of a car and it doesn t care if you smack it in a desperate attempt to keep your wild little mare on solid ground and away from the raging river. I am not exaggerating on the raging river part. Two days after our trip, the Yosemite valley flooded from all of the snow melt. After a while, the Horses Only trail started to become very steep, rough, and narrow. This was definitely not a trail for beginners! It was wet enough that our horses were slipping and we eventually decided to dismount and hike back down the hill and try the Valley Floor Trail.

4 Page 4 Riding the Valley Floor was an amazing experience. We had a great time and were featured in a lot of vacation photos. I would ride the valley again in a heartbeat but never again on that other trail! Jen in the valley - Half Dome in the background We decided to take Hwy 140 home because one of the rangers told us that it was an easier drive. It was, for the most part except for the massive rock slide and single lane bridge detour Then came the Horse Expo (my sister Samantha rode in Charles Wilhelm s demos) and the gymkhana shows started up again with the 4th of July weekend version of the Memorial Day Showdown. Sadly, I missed half the show because I had a suicidal mare up at Davis but that is another story. In mid-july, I went horse camping at Skillman with State TRAP Chair Marie Grisham, her family, and some other friends. I could only stay for 2 nights thanks to the suicidal mare at home, but we had a really fun time! We had amazing food and all the amenities of home! I don't camp very often, but I found that putting an air mattress in the bed of the truck and a netted pop-up tent over the whole thing works out pretty well. We went on some beautiful rides and only got lost in the Sierras for a little while (it s always an adventure when I am with the Fowlers). It was the perfect time of year because all the wild flowers were still in bloom. Angela and Pony at Skillman in Tahoe Natl Forest. A few weeks later, we stopped by the Tri-Cities Juniors campout at Skyline in Napa. My mom and Samantha also came to ride. Sam and I have similar sized horses, and so we usually share a saddle at the shows. Unfortunately, we could not share for the trail ride, so she decided to ride bareback. This ride was another learning experience My mom learned that her horse could scale a granite wall, and I learned that my mom would sacrifice her first born by knocking her off a cliff. We dubbed the experience Death Ride The Materne Ladies at Skyline In early August, we went to Point Pinole for the hikers/bikers/horses event. We hit the trail with Marie Grisham, but this time there weren t any cliffs. This was my first ride at Pt Pinole and I would do it again any time. It was a great summer and I am glad to have a family and friends that would go out on these crazy adventures with me. Of course, the adventures didn t stop there There was the Snaffle Bit Futurity, the Show of Champions, riding in the Grand National Rodeo but I think those stories belong in a different newsletter.

5 Page 5 Good Ride / Bad Ride Diane Offutt, Region 5 As 2011 came to a close and 2012 began, there are always New Year s resolutions. Mine is to get out and ride my horse more, at least once a week when weather is permitting. So, New Year s Day I have a great ride with a friend, just two horses and enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. This goes so well after not riding for what feels like months, we decide to meet up again at a local park in Livermore to ride the multi-use trail and have a holiday lunch afterward. The group has grown to four riders. We start off on Wetmore Avenue from Sycamore Park on the bridal path, adjacent to the bike trail which winds through homes, vineyards and a park or two. The horses are getting accustomed to riding together as we have two seasoned trail horses and two green broke trail horses. My son and I have ridden this trail many times so our horses are comfortable with the hikers, bikers, trucks and cars. The other green broke horse has been ridden on trails around the area but not around these items. Because it is a beautiful day and no one is in a hurry, it will be a schooling ride. Diane and Dollar About 20 minutes into the ride the green horse decides to zig when his owner thought he was just happy as can be walking down the trail. He then proceeded to buck her off and onto the trail luckily missing the asphalt pavement. Unfortunately she is knocked unconscious and huddled on the ground. I get out my cell phone and dial 911. This is where my story really becomes a lesson for all because the operator on the other end wants me to pinpoint where we are. I explained that we are west of Arroyo on the Livermore multiuse trail just beyond the first power lines but I don t know the actual name of the trail. My friend s horse is being held by one of the other riders so she is now holding two horses. My son has gone off with both of our horses to flag down the emergency vehicles on Wetmore and Arroyo. As I am huddled over my friend, her horse breaks loose from being held and leaves the scene of the crime. Luckily he does not go far and I am able to go get him while still chatting with 911. At this point my friend has regained consciousness and is trying to sit up. The next chapter in this trail ride is the entrance of four emergency vehicles with lights and sirens going at top volume. I loudly reminded the 911 operator that we have horses here and would really appreciate a quieter entrance to where we are waiting for help. Eventually they did slow down, turn off the sirens but did keep the lights flashing. Thank goodness our horses just looked at all the commotion and went back to eating what grass there was on the ground. Now with plenty of superior emergency help, questions started flying at us. Name, address, phone numbers, how long had she been unconscious, was she wearing a helmet, what form of identification did she have on her, etc. We did the best we could to answer the questions but were lost when it came to where were her keys to the truck and trailer? How would we get her vehicle back to their ranch? While someone was asking the questions and completing the paperwork, our friend was carefully taken away in the ambulance and slowly all the vehicles went back to their stations.

6 Page 6 Our next chapter has us walking the horses back to the staging area. Unfortunately no extra halters and lead ropes were available to lead the green broke horse back to the trailer but his ground manners are good and we worked on walking back calmly while more bikes and cars went past us. By the time we walked back to the staging area our friend was able to call us and tell us where the keys where. Horses were loaded up and taken to their respective homes. We all hear about stories of great trail rides and not so great rides. This story is being told to remind all of us that anything can happen on a ride, anyone can get hurt and it s always good to be prepared. Wearing a helmet is the easiest way to not only keep yourself safe but insure that no one else has to ever pick up the pieces and take care of you if something permanent happens. It is so scary to watch someone come off a horse and know that there is nothing you could do to prevent the injury. When riding, ALWAYS know where you are going, have a map with you and make sure that everyone has a form of identification on their person and on their horse. Carry a halter and lead rope with you. You never know when it will be your bridle that breaks or if someone else will need those tools. Carry a cell phone with you. We ended up using all three cell phones to communicate with each other and the emergency specialists. Know who has the keys to the vehicles, etc. for transportation to and from a ride. Have an extra set of keys so that you don t have to make an extra trip home get keys then get your horse(s) home. People think that trail riding is easy. It is with the right horse that has been exposed to many different people, places and items. Not all horses can handle the variety of commotion or solitude that comes with trail riding. Be sure to spend time with your outdoor partner making sure that both of you are safe, can have fun and are athletic enough to enjoy your time together. I am happy to report that my friend is doing fantastic and will ride again very soon. This ride reminded me that it is the simple things that make a big difference in an emergency. My push will be for everyone in our trail riding groups to wear helmets. Racecar drivers, motorcycle riders even rodeo bull riders are now wearing helmets. Someone recently said that a helmet is cheap insurance. No, they are not the most stylish hat you can wear. Cowboy hats will not protect your head when you come off that horse and sooner or later we all visit the ground. So, enjoy the trail safely, have fun and bring those essential items when you ride alone or in a group. Emergency Information Name: Address: Birth Date: Medical Coverage Information: Company: Medical ID #: Emergency Contact: Phone: Any medical conditions/concerns/allergies? Here s a handy Emergency Information card you can print, fill out and keep in your wallet and/or cell phone case. You may want to get it laminated.

7 Trail Rider Awards Program California State Horsemen s Assoc. Page 7 Mail Rider Logs and TRAP registrations to: Marie Grisham 663 El Centro Rd. El Sobrante, CA Phone: cshatrap@yahoo.com TRAP Website: cshatrap.org TRAP is now on Facebook! Ok, we have gotten with the times and now have a Facebook page for TRAP and Trails! I encourage folks to become friends and post your trail rides and pictures. It will also serve as a forum for Trail Issues. Let everyone know what s going on in your area so they can get involved! In Facebook search for: Csha Trap N Trail or go to