Wednesday 5th September 2018

What a crazy week it's been! For the past two days I've literally just been lounging, snacking and snoozing as my mind and body finally relaxed. Well, not just that, as I'm house sitting for some friends at the moment, but apart from looking after the place and the pets it's like having a mini holiday. They've got a pool and a swing seat - what more could I want!

So, last week was the final build up to the horse endurance festival, and it was a manic rush to make sure the routes were all ready for the races. Where early summer was so warm and wet, the grass and weeds have grown like crazy, and in some places well established tracks were barely visible. I had a brilliant bunch of helpers though who gave up a lot of their time to go out into the middle of nowhere, pruning back trees and shrubs and strimming wide swathes so the riders would be able to see the trails.

It's amazing what fun you can have when exhaustion and hysteria combine!

Stewards and vet assistants were needed to help on the stadium and at various points on the routes, but even a few days before the event I still wasn't sure exactly how many people would be needed. There were 5 places where the horses would cross main roads, and two or three other off-road points where stewards might be needed to check that the riders didn't take a sneaky shortcut. I must admit this added to the stress big time as there was no way I had enough volunteers to cover so many places, but we went ahead and had our meeting anyway and provisionally allocated people to places for the day.

The volunteers for stewarding and vet assisting

Quite a lot of them stayed behind after the meeting to help put signs into plastic covers ready for the routes (this year we had to have a distance sign every 5km for the riders on each route, and to have warnings on the roads for approaching traffic, as well as warnings to let riders know they were approaching a main road or some other hazard).

Early Thursday morning Jenny and I headed down to the stadium to meet Tisho and Nikolai who would be driving the routes with us in a jeep and helping put out all the markers. We'd brought along a strimmer, some loppers and a saw, which were all added to the huge heap of poles and signs in the open bed of the jeep, then me and Jenny climbed in on top of the lot and perched ourselves on the edge ready to help tie markers onto the trees en route. Sitting on the metallic edge of a truck bouncing over 30km of rough track was to prove a big mistake!

Over the next 7 or so hours the guys hammered signs in, sprayed paint arrows on the ground and Jenny and I tied hundreds of coloured streamers onto trees and shrubs.

Here's Nikolai hammering a warning sign for approaching traffic. Interestingly on Tuesday morning I noticed that this sign has now migrated to a place near Dryanovo. I guess a horse owner down that way thought it might prove handy!

Jenny helping Tisho hammer in another sign

It was a hot and tiring day, and by about 4.30pm we still hadn't fully marked the 30km route, so the guys said to call it a day and that we'd finish this and do the other route the next day. Well, it wasn't quite the end of the day for Jenny and I. Part of one route was too shrubby for the horses to pass easily, so having been dropped off from the jeep, we piled our strimmers into my car and drove back up the track to do another hour's work cutting back all the little thorny sloe bushes.

Back indoors at about 6.30pm all I wanted to do was lay in the cool with multiple mugs of tea. There I was on the settee, stripped down to my undies, when a phone call comes through from the head of the endurance event asking to meet me down at the stadium to discuss the layout of the vet area. I think I was on pure auto-pilot at that point. Back into sweaty clothes and off down to the stadium.

That night, when finally in the shower, I discovered why sitting on the edge of the truck wasn't a good idea. My bum had turned a lovely shade of black as two huge bruises emerged. Time to sort out a giant cushion for the next day!

Friday morning and back into the jeep again only this time with cushions to sit on, ah, much better! As you can see from this picture, despite the heat and long hours we were still smiling.

Saturday morning arrived and the races began. The stewards needed to be down at the stadium for around 7.30am to collect our official tabards, and we saw the first horses lining up for the races. There were 3 races taking place: 80km, 60km and 40km, all setting off within 5 or 10 minutes of each other. The races are made up of loops, and in between each loop the riders return to the stadium for their horses to be checked by the vets and to have a rest before heading out again. If any horse isn't totally fit then it isn't allowed to carry on competing.

Vet Krasi checks one of the horses. The vets listen to the heart rate, check muscle tone and look for signs of dehydration and lameness amongst other things

Despite the savage temperatures, out of 28 competitors only one horse was stopped during an event because it had become lame. That's testament to how well trained and cared for the animals are.

Sally and I were at a check point on the 20km route, with a list of rider numbers due to pass that way. Our job was to check the riders off on our list and to report back to base that no one had taken a short cut. We were told to watch for two riders in particular, so I guess they had a bit of a reputation for trying to cut corners. Everyone was honest though and stuck to the given routes for us.

Where we were, was also a crew check point, and during the second lap some people arrived with buckets of water for the horses and drinks for the riders.

Thirsty riders. The horses also had lots of water poured over their backs to help cool them down

The crew had a spare bottle of water which they left for us, and we sneakily handed it to a couple of riders later who had no one supporting them - hope that wasn't cheating! They were very thankful anyway.

By about 5.30pm all the riders were back at the stadium and had passed their final vet checks, so then it was award time. They all got a certificate and rosette, and many got a HorsePower t-shirt. There were two money prizes for the fastest in the 80km and 60km races too. All the funding came out of the 30 lev fee that the riders pay to enter, and that still left some to go towards next year's festival.

No lie, the preparations have at times been very physically demanding and caused many a sleepless night through worrying about different aspects, but suddenly it's all worthwhile when you see how happy and excited a rider is when they and their horse successfully complete a race, and to have a rider come up and thank you in person for making the routes so well prepared is just the icing on the cake.