Gold Country Ride and Tie, July 9, 2005
I’ve always suspected that Ride and Tie people were
absolutely nuts, and as of Saturday, July 9th, 2005, at 1:09 pm, in
beautiful Georgetown,
California, my suspicions have been
undeniably confirmed. I’ve seen
these people at some endurance rides, running along on the trail, huffing and
puffing, always running, but always moving down the trail. I’ve seen horses tied to trees on the
trail, some standing quietly, while some are tearing the tree down and dragging
it down the trail while they run away.
Why would people choose to do this insanity, when they could be riding a
nice horse instead?
Because it’s actually pretty fun! Yes, I did a ride and tie. A twenty mile ride and tie, to
boot. My new horse Don is on his
routine for a ride every 4 weeks, and wouldn’t you know it, the Gold Country
ride fell right smack at the two week point in Don’s schedule. I was thinking about finding a horse to
ride, since the GC is a fabulous ride, when my buddy Gary Fend made an off hand
comment about how we should try the ride and tie. We could use his horse, Canadian Annie,
the Mack truck of half Arabians.
After all, Gary was a real veteran of Ride and Tie
competition, having done all of one event prior to this one. What the heck? Why not? How tough could it be? I am not really a recreational runner,
but I do a lot of footwork and running in regular rides with my horse, I used to
be an aerobic beast on my road bicycle, and I actually had been doing a lot of
running with Don lately. Sounds
like fun!
The GC ride was huge this year- there were almost 140 horses
in total, and the ride management dealt with something like 50 people on the
waiting list. I was impressed at
the really positive attitude and overall camaraderie of the ride and tie
group. They were all so jazzed and
excited about the event! When they
found out it was my first time, they were all over me with helpful hints, offers
to crew, suggestions, and were truly excited we were giving it a try. The event seemed like any other endurance
ride I have ever been to, until Saturday morning. I got to sleep in while Judy prepared
and left on the 50 at 6am. Big
Yawn- I got to sleep in until 8 am!
That’s a civilized time to get up, let me tell you. We attended a little riders meeting
where Gary and I scoped out the competition. We were a little out of our element-
some of these guys looked like marathoners. There were only 12 teams in total- 6 on
the 20 mile and 6 on the 10 mile.
They have neat teams in the sport- they have man/woman teams, woman/woman
teams, and Gary and I were a man/man team.
The other team concept I liked was the “Century in the Saddle” team. Oh yeah, we win this one, hands
down! Gary and I combined are well
over a hundred years old, but I’ll never admit how much!
The strangest thing I felt initially was walking from the
truck to the start, wearing my riding gear and helmet, without a horse! I kept looking back like I forgot him!
Very strange.
Gary
hopped up on the massive bay Annie and we headed to the start. The theory behind a ride in tie is
pretty simple- 2 riders, one horse, no riding two-up, and the winning team is
the one who gets all three heartbeats across the finish line first. I really had no idea what to expect, so
I had Gary
start, since he’s done it before.
I have heard that the start at these events can be pretty berserk, but
with only 6 teams at once, it was quite tame. The ride starts, and the riders
take off down the road on the horses, while the six runners (myself included) take off running. Gary trots off, but the first couple of horses
are running! And so are the
runners! Look at these guys! Cripes- I’m in last already, and it’s
been five hundred feet! Oh well,
our goal is to survive and make it to the finish. I’m running along on a nice downhill,
but I can still see two runners ahead of me. After only about a mile, there’s the
first horse I see tied- it’s Annie!
(Impossible to miss, since she’s so huge) I run up to her, untie her from the tree
branch, and notice Gary about fifty yards ahead, jogging up a
hill. I hop on, and after
remembering I’m riding a fifty-five gallon oil drum, (she’s that wide), I start
trotting- our first rider switch was a success! The next one I saw wasn’t. A few moments later I can see a woman
taking the horse from her partner. The horse isn’t standing still, and wants to
go after the other horses. (Sound
familiar?) She gets a foot in
the stirrups, tries to swing up, but the horse is leaving, and she’s not
up. Uh oh, not
good. She’s on the side of
the horse, and he’s trotting. She
falls off, but is hanging on and being dragged! He’s cantering now, and I’m watching
this- it was like in the old westerns when the cowboy falls off and just gets
hauled away by the horse across the plains. She FINALLY lets go and is rolling along in the dirt, getting totally
scuffed in the process. OUCH! That
had to hurt. I stop, but she’s up
and heading down the road.
Gary
turns around and catches the running horse (!) and returns it to her, where she
gets up and takes off. Wow! She never even lost a place. Tough rider! I trot on by Gary, thankful he and I
are wearing our helmets.
Now it’s my turn to pick a spot to tie- how far should I
go? The road is hard, but wide and
rolling, so I trot along and see a tied horse. Good! They tie, I tie. I hopped off and tied her to a tree and
took off running down the trail, leaving her behind. Weird feeling number two! Very
weird. I stopped and took a
look back- she‘s standing there like a statue. Good horse! I ran down the road and made a
right hand turn onto a pretty single track trail that was slightly
downhill. Hey, this is neat! I blast along down the trail running
kind of fast, and even passed a runner.
Western States 100, here I come!
(Oh yeah, right. Let’s see if it feels this good in a few
hours!) I ran for quite a
while, since we discovered that being endurance riders, we normally don’t trot
fast down hills. That meant I was
going faster down the hills on foot than Gary was on the horse! I doubted that this would be a 20
mile downhill trail, and guess what, I was right. The trail turned up, and as a result, my
pace slowed. I was jogging up,
though, and not walking, but Gary quickly caught me. We tried a rider pass off where he just
stopped and gave me the horse. I
took off, leaving him running behind me.
It was very strange to get up on the horse and start trotting, and be
completely out of breath. Here I
am, trotting along, huffing and puffing.
The horse must think I am nuts!
But it works! After a couple
of minutes I felt fine, and was enjoying trotting along on the big mare. Yikes! I better not forget to stop and leave
the horse- poor Gary would be in for quite a stint if I rode
off for 30 minutes!
We continued on for a few miles, and actually looked like we
knew what we were doing. We made
many rider exchanges, and rode along with two other teams, mixing it up with the
runners. I was on foot when we got
to the water stop at 5 miles, and after grabbing a bottle of water, I just kept
going. Weird again! I was getting a good workout heading up
a pretty good hill, but after a few minutes, here comes big Annie to the
rescue. I could tell it was her by
her very distinctive “clomping.”
(She’s a little on the heavy side.)
Gary goes
by, but stops to tie under a tree a hundred yards ahead. Off he goes, I get to the horse and get
stung twice by yellow jackets as I hop on.
Great.
I hate those guys. We passed
the horse back and forth between us a few times until we came to the downhill
section, where I ended up running all the way down, maybe 15 minutes, since I
was going as fast as the horse.
Somehow the crafty Gary planned the exchanges so that I had to
cross the river on foot, getting my shoes soaked in the process. Now I’m in a squish and tie. Once across the water, I started up the
long climb up to the vet check. It
was about a mile and a half, but on foot it seemed like three. We had to walk up the steep grade, each
of us taking a couple of turns on Annie.
Boy, that’s a nice relief to see the horse in front of you. My lungs were going pretty hard when we
finally reached the top- the slight uphill road to the airport seemed like a
downhill after that steep climb. A
quick change and we were at the vet check.
Here’s where it gets really strange. No hold! Once the horse is at pulse criteria, and
passes the vet exam, off you go.
But there is some strategy involved, and as Ride and Tie Pro Dennis Tracy
had coached us, we did it like the Pros.
We all arrived at the same time, so the smart thing to do is immediately
send the strongest runner off on the trail again, right away, while the other
rider takes the horse through the vet check. Once clear of the vet, the rider with
the horse takes off in pursuit of the runner. Great Plan, except for a couple of
factors. We hit the vet check; I
grabbed a huge drink and just turned around and took off back down the
trail. The pulse criteria was 60-
pretty low for a R&T
I guess. It took
Gary about 15
minutes to get Annie down and through the vet check; he wanted her to have a
little time to eat as well. And what of me?
I’m running! Down, down, all
the way back down the steep climb we had just come up. This trail was really steep, so
Gary would be
going down very slowly on the horse.
I hit the streams at the bottom and sploosh
across once more, supercharging my shoes with water again. It’s been about 15 minutes I’m on foot
now. I head down the road along the
stream at a decent trot; its very pretty and shaded
down here. I’m running, but I’m
tired. Another 10 minutes and
I clear the bottom of the canyon and start the climb back up. Where is Gary? I’m walking up the steeper hills,
jogging the less steep, and trying to go a little faster on the flats and
downhill’s. He has our water
on the horse, and I’m thirsty.
Run, Run, Run. More uphills.
Walk, Walk, Walk. It’s been 30 minutes now. I’m still moving forward, but I’m ready
to hear the giant clomp of Annie’s hoofs behind me. No clomping. Still
uphill. I begin to wonder
what would happen if Annie had been pulled at the vet check? How would I know? At the finish, I guess. How far am I going to go? I decided that if I made it to the water
stop before Gary
caught me, I’d just lie down and die for a while until he showed up, or I’d get
a ride back in a truck. Another five miles by myself? In the open sun on
those uphill roads? I don’t
think so!
I went for a long time before I finally heard those wonderful
hoofs come up behind me. It knew it
was Gary, since
we were the last of the 20 mile teams on the trail, and there were no 50 leaders
on us yet. Gary thought I must have
gotten lost, since it was taking him so long to catch me, due to the vet check,
that slow downhill, and my unbelievable speed on foot! (Right!) I was pretty tired and gladly got up on
Annie and let my partner hoof it.
We trotted off up the hill- much better! Now’s my chance to go all the way to the
finish- Nah, I couldn’t do that to poor Gary.
We went back to our standard trading scheme of something like a half mile
each, with enough time to let Annie get a rest while tied. Not too much further we got back to the
water stop where I had the guy just douse me with water. I was scooping myself from head to toe.
It was hot! Five miles to go! Neither Gary nor I had a lot of
motivation left, but we kept going, walking the uphills and jogging the rest. Gary came across Annie standing in the middle
of the road with the tree I had tied her to attached to
the end of her lead rope. Bad
choice of tree to tie to! I t was
more like a sapling. We trudged up
the hills in the direct sun, each waiting for that wonderful horse to come up
from behind. Some of the top 15 or
so riders coming the other way on their second loop would offer me water. I must have looked pretty tired! We finally reached the little cutoff
trail that did a little loop of a mile or so. I was still running, but slowly, and
only on level and downhill. I
realized at this point that my “forward” was leaving me. My gait was okay, but my impulsion was a
C at best. I walked up the last
hill and made it back to the main road- a mile to go. We traded about 4 times in that last
mile, since neither of us had any real desire to be on foot much. At long last we arrived at the little
hill that led right to the finish on top.
Gary was
on the horse, I was walking along beside them up the hill. We could see the finish in a couple
hundred yards, when here comes my wife, Judy, riding
with Lucy Trumbul Chapman and Merri Melde. They were heading out on their second
loop. We figured they would cheer
us on, and help celebrate, but all we got was “What? How come you aren’t running?” Groan! I was done, as was Gary. Lady was by far perkier than both of us
combined. We actually ran across
the finish line, and then stopped.
Done.
Finished.
Completed.
Thank goodness.
Wow. What a
workout. Annie got very good scores
at the post ride check- she did great.
The runners? I was happy to sit down. Had it been 5 miles more it would have
been a little iffy, although we probably could have walked it. We did end up second in our class, (out
of 2) and 6th overall (out of 6). I was pleased to hear we only finished a
little over an hour slower than the winner, though. That really helped, although I’m not
sure why it really mattered. We
made it to the finish.
What did I learn?
I realized that this sport is not what I thought it was. It’s a running event where you use a
horse a little to help you out, as opposed to a horse event where you do a
little running. Being a good runner
is everything. Considering neither
Gary nor I did any training, I figure we did pretty well. And now that it’s over, it was fun. Will I do it again? I won’t be turning in my AERC card any
time soon, but given the right event, and maybe a few miles shorter, who
knows. The best summation of how
Gary and I felt at the end was when the winner of the 50 caught us with a half
mile to go. We got off the trail,
(glad to stop for a moment), as she came swooping by. She said: “Wow, you Ride and Tie guys
really are amazing, you are Supermen!”
Gary’s
reply was classic- he smiled, and said, “Thanks, but at the moment I don’t feel
very super.” I could not have
expressed it any better. But two
hours, and some much needed food and drink later, we were feeling pretty darn
good.
Nick Warhol
Hayward, Ca