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Kerry Ridgeway orchestrated the 1989 Tevis, and I don't think it has ever run more smoothly. The Friday before the ride, he organized a seminar which included Jeff Herten discussing "trail emergencies and electrolytes for riders," Dr. Les Carr on "rider stress" and Diana Thompson demonstrating the T.E.A.M. and body work for horse and rider. The thorough pre-ride meeting included an introduction of Jeri Bergen, USFS, superintendent of Tahoe National Forest, and award of appreciation to Tony Rossman, the Western States running attorney who has helped so much with he WS Trail, acknowledgment of the super efforts of the entire Board of Governors, and culminated in Bill Blum's moving poetry rendition of his "First Fifty."
Our perfect weekend started with my 11 year old daughter Kyala, our exchange student from Germany, Alex, and I leaving the Mendocino Coast and unprecedented four days early for R&R along the American River on our way to the ride, Since we were also bringing up the Arabians, Steed and Chardonney, who along with Appy, Dancing Lady, were leased out for the ride (and all finished strong), we each had a horse to ride on our sojourn, Arriving at Squaw on Thursday, we staked out a grassy paddock with our port-a-corral, and busied ourselves visiting with friends and re-arranging my weights. (A job we finished approximately 30 seconds before the start of the ride).
In order to finish in the "top ten," a rider must weigh in at 165 pounds with tack. My tack and I weigh about 120. The 45 pounds of dead weight Sherif carried was in aerobic weights taped to the stirrups, and abalone divers belt sewn to the girth (and re-sewn, and re-sewn, and...), shoeing equipment and a gigantic 5-cell flashlight in pommel bags (might as well carry weight we might put to use), and lead shot in with the first aid kits in the back pockets of my trail saddle pad. I actually weighed in at 174 pounds, but I wanted to be safe, because we would be weighed during and after the ride, and couldn't afford to trust that each scale would register the same.
Sherif tends to hit himself with his opposite foot, so I had thick protective neoprene splint boots for him on all four legs. Alex and I awoke at 3:30 a.m. for the 5:00 a.m. start, and began tacking up early, so that Sherif could have a long, gradual warm-up period, particularly important for him, since he has tied up a couple of times in the past.
However, even though he had traveled with trailer wraps on all four legs, when Sherif felt the leg protectors on his hind limbs, he totally freaked out. He started trying to kick them off, drawing his hind legs up tight to his belly, then kicking out straight behind like a Lippizanner stallion. I thought for sure he would throw off all his weights, destroy the paddock and the other two horses, suffer terrible leg cramps, and totally jeopardize his chances in the Tevis. But Alex caught him, and three people helped me get on.
He got worse. At great danger to her person, Alex accompanied me to the start, tightening my girth a notch every few hundred yards. (Those weights sure do stretch out a mohair girth). Surrounded by 187 other horses, we took off up the four mile climb to Squaw Summit, for a gain of 3,000 feet in elevation. In order to get the chaos of the start far away from the delicate newly planted lawns in Squaw Valley, Kerry had decided that the actual start of the ride would be a mile up the trail. The uphill trudge calmed Sherif considerably, but after the mile, we had a ten minute wait before they set us free. I had to turn Sherif head down the steep slope for him to stand at all; he began to quiver and shake uncontrollably. To tell the truth, I really thought he would tie up before we ever started.
Then we were off. Sherif was a maniac. Thanks to the jointed pelham I ride him in, I had brakes, but he fought me every step, shaking his head to jerk the reins out of my hands, and stumbling to his knees a couple of times when I pulled him to a walk in particularly boulder-strewn footing. Although I really wanted to go slower, we were in fifth place going over Cougar Rock about 15 miles out. Sherif always takes the Rock as if it were a cavalette pole, but at the extreme up angle, gravity took its toll on my weighted saddle pad. We had neglected to fasten the keepers on the right side, and the pad slipped out the back of the saddle, and to the left. So I rode the next five miles, desperately grasping the straining pad, as we flew down the trail.
At the crossroads 20 miles out, ride officials had hauled in water for the horses. We always stop here on the Tevis Trail Training Seminar for lunch. I rode in yelling for help with a tack adjustment, and two people ran right over. Sherif must have thought it was break time, because he took a big drink, sighed deeply when I took off the saddle, urinated, and went to sleep while I tacked him back up. He was a different horse from then on out.
Although many horses had passed us at the crossroads, I was confident that the extra rest and brain re-adjustment would ultimately work to our advantage. We cruised easily along, arriving at Robinson Flat 31 miles out in fifth place again. We had one hour mandatory hold, with a vet check at a half hour.
My crew at Robinson consisted of Judy and Tom, alumnae of the Tevis Trail Training Seminar, and Dwayne, a three-day event trainer from Oregon, who had actually come to the Tevis to crew for Jennifer Horseman, but ended up helping Sherif and I immeasurably, also. We iced all four legs. And, of course, Sherif put on a rodeo with the ice boots. Then I applied diluted lineament to his legs and we massaged him. But the lineament ran down onto his fetlocks, which were rubbed raw by the splint boots. Sherif started kicking again at the irritation, The vet thought he might be beginning to colic, so were watched his reactions to green grass (ravenous) for a while before he would vet him through. Despite reacting to the ice boots and lineament, his pulse was low, and he trotted out flamboyantly. We left the vet stop in 3rd place, as two horses in front of us had been pulled.
Riding to Last Chance with Ralph Wadsworth, we had a terrific time. Our horses were well matched, and Ralph and I enjoyed the opportunity to renew out always fleeting but fun acquaintance. Just before Last Chance, we caught up with the first rider, Julie Buxton. Julie and I left the "stop and go" check virtually together; I didn't see Ralph again on a horse... he was crewing for his son, Ty, later in the day.
All the vet checks other than Robinson and Michigan Bluff are "stop and go." As soon as your horse's pulse and respiration are down to the required criteria, you may be checked out by the vet and leave, so P&R recovery time is crucial. And this is where Sherif really shines.
I ran the steep down on the two big canyons, and got off to grab tail the steep two mile up (with 47 switchbacks) leading to the Devil's Thumb. The ESPN film crew in their helicopter scared the heck out of me as we traversed the awful washout with its 18 inch wide rock trail and three hundred foot drop on the left. But Sherif didn't even notice the whirly-bird or the suspension bridge. The vet check at Deadwood was a breeze.
Michigan Bluff vet check at 60 miles as exciting. My main crew, Kyala and Alex, were there, as well as Judy, Tom, Dwayne and Bill Blum. ESPN filmed and interviewed us as we did our usual pit stop routine. I wolfed down a hamburger from the stand at Eldon and Alice Hall's. Julie had left at a dramatic flurry down main street, heading for Volcano Canyon.
At Foresthill vet check, we wasted no time. Afterwards, trotting together through greater downtown Foresthill was the closest I've ever come to being Homecoming Queen. Every resident was waving and yelling congratulations and good luck. We were nearly blowing kisses. The horses arched their necks and breathed fire.
Then came the hot reality of the next 18 miles. It was over 100 degrees that day in the canyons. We led the horses on the steep down and tailed the ups. Our horses seemed to appreciate each other's company as much as we did. That stretch between Foresthill and Francisco's always seems like the longest part of the ride, with spectacularly beautiful but tantalizing views our over the American River. You envy those river rafters. Next year on the seminar, we're going to end up rafting!
I've never gone slower on that stretch of trail on ride day. But we had a half hour lead over the third place horse, and I figured that if he caught us, it would be at the expense of going fast; our horses would be fresher. At Francisco's vet check, Steve Shaw and Ty Wadsworth did catch us. And I nearly blew it.
Sherif's recoveries had been so wonderful all day, I got lazy and didn't take off his neoprene splint boots, even though I knew they hold in heat. The water buckets were in the shade, and Sherif's P&R's came down immediately. But when I took him into the sun to be vetted in, he started to pant from the heat. We received a 15 minute hold, and watched Julie ride off towards Auburn, about 15 minutes away.
I wasn't in a panic, though. I figured that extra rest time just gives you more horse to ride, if there are enough miles left in the ride. Steve Shaw and I caught up with Julie at the American River crossing, and the three of us had a good time riding into the last vet check at Highway 49 together.
My whole crew was there, and they were phenomenal. Sherif was the first horse to vet through, I jumped on, and then we had a comedy of miscommunication. Crew members tried to slap the splint boots on quickly; I glanced down as I got ready to gallop off, and saw the hind boots were on backwards. Afraid that if they came loose they'd freak Sherif out on the narrow trail to come, I screamed to jerk them off. There was a frantic moment when some people tried to put them on as others tried to pull them off, them me pleading "please get 'em off and let me GO!"
 Free at last, we galloped across Highway 49, hooting as we spurted up the hill towards Paige Harper Springs. At the top, we broke into the extended trot and slalomed towards No Hands Bridge in the growing dark. I gave up trying to get out my gigantic flashlight... it was tied into my pommel bag too darned well. I was caressing Sherif's neck, and telling him what a wonderful horse he was as he flew along the narrow trail. I though no horse in the world could catch us now, because no horse could match Sherif's extended trot at that stage of the race.
I had forgotten about galloping. Steve thundered up behind us, but had no room to pass. Out crews were parallel to us, blocking Highway 49 a quarter mile away, honking their horns, flashing headlights and yelling encouragement.
When we hit No Hands Bridge, three miles from the finish, it was a flat out horse race, The bridge is 300 yards long, and about 12 feet wide. We were both in jockey position, putting on a show for our crews. As we neared the end of the bridge, Steve poured it on, and I pulled out. I sat up, seesawing the reins, waved "no go" to my crew, and watched Steve's horse canter off into the dark. Although Sherif tried to tell me he could take that horse, I told him that being second on Tevis was plenty good enough.
Later, I heard that some members of my crew thought Sherif was running out of gas on the bridge, and bemoaned that we weren't going to win. My daughter Kyala, however, insisted that I had purposely pulled Sherif up, and told them her mom just wouldn't ride Sherif that fast after 97 miles.
Lo and behold, a mile and a half before the finish, I saw a big black spot in the middle of the trail. It wasn't a bear or a boulder; it was Steve's horse. I stopped to ask if he needed help, and he said "we're finished." A little ding-batty at this point, I though for a moment that they had moved the finish line. But Steve yelled, "Hey, you won...GET OUT OF HERE!" I screamed "Thank you" and took off in Sherif's ground eating trot through the "Black Holes" of Calcutta. On the last uphill before the finish, we walked. For a moment I wondered if I was making a mistake, risking Steve's overtaking us again, but going "slow" had been the right strategy so far, and I saw no reason to change now. When we saw the lights, we gave a war whoop, and galloped across the finish line with a flourish. A flying dismount had me crying and hugging Sherif's neck; next came Kerry Ridgway, who had managed the 1989 Tevis perfectly.
We had a mile to walk to the Auburn Gold Country Fairgrounds for our round before the crows in the stadium, with the inimitable Potato Richardson as MC. As I remounted, I wondered if Sherif's adrenaline had subsided to the point where he would sedately trot the finale. But, no... he took off in a final fling, and my heart was fairly bursting with joy as we galloped around to celebrate our victory.
P.S. I burned the splint boots. |
