Another Cirencester report

Having seen the earlier post from Louise Rich on her Cirencester ride, Ally Knight emailed me to ask if she could submit a report on her Cirencester ride; 'Of course', I said in reply.  Am loving hearing how you are all getting on with your rides this year, here is her report -


'When I read that the Cirencester ride was back on the calender and included in its schedule was a 65km class for novices that had not yet upgraded to open, I decided that must be my plan for the year ahead.

I had planned for Gypsy to upgrade at the beginning of the season as she was easily coping with the faster speed the season before, but instead decided to wait until Cirencester.  The qualification to enter was to have successfully completed 3 rides between 30 - 50km in the current year. Due to work commitments I could only go to 3 rides before Cirencester, so there was a lot of hoping and praying things went well at each one. I decided there was no point doing any more mileage than I had to, so I entered the 30km at each ride. Gypsy went really well at each one and kept up good speeds with good finishing heart rates. I had to submit my entry to Cirencester before my third ride so it became nail biting stuff at the third ride as she went to vet; thumbs up, we'd done it, Cirencester here we come.

Ride day.  6am we left home and arrived at a very chilly Cirencester venue at 7.30. Would we be using all that ice we had bought with us?  I went off to collect my number, check for route changes and vetgate hold time, while Hubby claimed a space at the vet gate for our buckets/water/spare tack etc. We vetted at 8.30, with a heart rate of 43, her lowest of the year!  Finding myself parked next to Gaynor Rose, whom I had ridden the last couple of kilometres with at Barbury, we decided to to set off together and see how it went.

So Garmin set, watch set, for 5 1/2 hours of riding time, optimum time 12kph, we set off on the black route of 35km.  The route was easy going and we cantered a lot of it, which was great as it kept our speed up around 13kph, however we were very grateful to see our crew at each crewing point for lots of sloshing.  At the last crewing point we fed Gypsy to keep her energy levels up, something we always do, roughly half way round.  Into the park we went, still mostly cantering, knowing there was plenty of watering points on route.  The marking was excellent and 2 hours 32 mins later we arrived at the vetgate. It was getting hot by this time so we decided to use the iced water and 11 mins later we handed our card to the vet steward, vetted at 60 and still full of beans to trot up. Back to our hold area for a 30 minute break where we fed Gypsy again and she drank well, the time flew past and in no time we were tacking up again to head off to the time keeper and off out onto the green 30km route.
Gypsy being the least tired we let her lead the way.
  
The green route started roughly the same, then took us further out into the country, again we were very glad to see our crew as the heat was starting to get to us.  We kept up a good speed until the last watering point where we lingered for too long and lost a bit of time which meant the last 5km had to be ridden at a canter all the way home. Gypsy was happy to steam ahead taking Gaynor`s horse with us. 
Crossing the finish line just over the 12kph optimum time we went back to the trailer get ready for the final vetting.

Using iced water again we sloshed and scraped until her heart rate was in the early 50`s then decided to vet in case the heat pushed it up again.  She vetted at 54bpm and with an enthusiastic trot up we got a thumbs up from the vet.

I was absolutely delighted, gave big hugs all round and Gypsy was well fit to continue which is what its all about.  My finishing time was 11.89kph which meant I came 2nd!  I was totally amazed at this especially as it was my first 65km.

So what's next?  Watch this space next year.'

Ally Knight


Wow, well done Ally and Gypsy, sounds like you had a fabulous end to the season, and just to prove it, here they are collecting their rosettes.  A very well done indeed from all of us at -http://160kminoneday.blogpsot.co.uk