The Geo Bun Buster 50, 2002
A ride of Monumental Accomplishment
(and the best ride lunch ever!)
I love going to new rides, especially rides in the desert. The Geo ride has been around for quite a while, but I have not been down to Coso Junction, California, yet for this one. Coso Junction is on Highway 395, about 30 miles north of Ridgecrest. Why they call it a junction, I’ll never know, since the only thing I saw that resembled a junction was where a dirt road crossed the highway. It is sort out in the middle of nowhere in the high desert, on the way to Mammoth. And speaking of names, I always wondered about who “George” was, and why he had a ride named after him. Did he have his buns busted, or what? I was informed that the “Geo” stands for the geothermal energy plant that is located out in the desert, near where the ride takes place. Okay- I got it now. I guess the ride would sound funny if it were called the “Geothermal energy plant bun buster 50.” (although I kind of like that, catchy, eh?)
This was one ride I had to attend. I really love riding in the desert, but I normally would attend the rides a little closer to home. This time it was special. On this day, at this ride, there would be an attempt to do what only 8 other horses have ever done in the history of the sport. Jackie Bumgardner’s legendary horse Zayante would be going for his 10,000th career endurance mile. I have a vested interest in this animal, since I have ridden him to 1100 of those miles in the past three years, and like him a lot. Ten thousand miles. Think about that for a moment. It is a huge achievement in this sport for a horse to go 5,000 miles, given all the wear, tear, stress, abuse, rocks, heat, swamps, alligators, and day after day miles that a good endurance horse does in his or her life. To go to six, or seven, or eight, or nine thousand miles in sanctioned events is huge. Egads- think about all the conditioning miles on top of the rides! But there is something special about that magical 10K mark. I was at the finish line when Trilby Peterson went over the 50K mark, and again when my hero Julie Suhr went over 25,000 career miles. When riders accomplish these incredible feats, it is really special, but for one horse to go so far, with the odds so much against him, is simply magnificent. That’s a good word to describe Zayante- he’s simply magnificent.
I was going to drive down from Hayward on Saturday morning just to be at the ride, to help celebrate if Zay made it to the finish. It turned out I was able to re-schedule a business trip so I could come down Friday night instead. (hey- priorities are priorities!) That meant I could ride, if I could find a horse down there. My good friend Jackie has been so great about letting me ride Zayante so often, not to mention getting to ride Holly at the 20MT, I just called her up and asked if she had an equine for me. She said sure, Holly is fit, strong, and ready to go. Cool! For a moment Jackie thought she might ride Holly, and I could ride Zay, but that wasn’t right. She needed to be on him at this ride. That’s fine with me- Holly’s a pretty neat horse as well, so I had a ride. We had quite a group of riders from Jackie’s stable. There was me on Holly, Jackie on Zay, Merri rode Rebecca’s horse Maggie, Gretchen rode Jackie’s horse Rafique, and Susan rode Rebecca’s sister’s horse Adonis. (sorry about the last names, guys, I don’t remember them) Gretchen and Susan are buddies of Jackie from the Bridgeport area, and were down for the weekend to do the ride. I left work on Friday afternoon and drove straight down to Coso (after fighting highway closures and traffic) and found the camp at about 8:30 pm, where there were a LOT of rigs. It was kind of windy and cold, not too bad, but unless you were Dave Rabe, you needed some warm clothes. I got signed up and went promptly to bed on the floor of Jackie’s trailer. She has this heater in there, that works so well……. I slept fine and woke up to more wind, but still, not that bad, just enough to be cold. We got tacked up and headed to the start in our little herd, all the horses doing very well. (Well, Maggie was pulling on Merri a little) It is so nice to be on horses that act nicely at the start and on the ride. But out of nowhere, a gray horse that was out of control came bouncing over and whacked into Susan and Adonis, bumping Susan’s leg pretty hard. That was certainly uncalled for. She said “Ouch,” or the like, in her great British accent, but shrugged it off. We got underway at the end of the pack, wanting to just take it easy and go Zay’s pace all day. I was wondering how well the five of us were going to be able to go the same pace together, but it turned out to be very easy to keep them all just trucking along. (Merri might disagree with that in the morning on Maggie, since the Horse was sort of in a hurry.) We were joined just after the start by Becky Hackworth on her new horse, and her daughter, Heather, my 20MT riding buddy, on Mark. Then some more horses joined us- at one point we had about twelve horses going along in a long string across the desert. The trail was great- single track that winds through the desert with excellent footing. We headed up the valley in our little 20-mule team of horses, (okay, 12 mule team) just bopping along, enjoying the beautiful desert and the nice weather. It was still breezy, but people were getting warm from the too-many-layers syndrome so common in the mornings. The trail worked its way up into the foothills, onto a smooth road that took us to some really nice high desert roads. It was very scenic up here, the footing stayed perfect. There was plenty of water put on the trail by the ride management- very nice. I kind of wanted to see the infamous Geothermal plant, because I’ve never seen one of those before, but it was not to be. We went up and down through some roly-poly hills, then through a pretty valley, then we did a little climb up to the top of a ridge that took us down the sandy hill. It was a sand dune type of thing, but it was very steep. Most of us got off and walked down it, but it wasn’t really walking- it was sort of like floating through the sand. At the bottom there was enough sand removed from people’s shoes to fill a good-sized gravel truck. A nice road led us down the valley to the first check. We ran into some problems here- the place was set up on a road without enough room. The water troughs were on the road, the P&R people were at the water troughs, and the vets were just past them. It was a very confusing, crowded stop that took everyone a long time to get through. It was only a fifteen-minute hold, but we spent 20 minutes in the vet line alone, some more. Another vet showed up and thankfully helped the situation- he took the vet check down to another road that helped clear up the congestion. All of our herd made it through the check okay, especially Zayante. He is one of those horses who will stiffen up after standing around at a check, especially in the cool wind. He trotted out fine! One check down, three more to go. Heather’s horse Mark was pulled for a lameness problem, hopefully it is not serious. He’s a great horse, and I think that might have been his first pull. Heather was disappointed, but took it in stride. We left the busy check and headed out across some more little ridges on more single track trails, climbing over several washes, and finally up a little wash canyon that led to the top of the hill. The view was super- you can see those Sierra mountains with lots of snow right across the valley. It was windy and cool up here, not horrible, but I was glad I kept my second layer on. We headed down a long, winding, very soft trail back into the desert valley. A left turn along a barbed wire fence took us south for a while, then we hung a right and started the long, steady, trot across the valley to lunch. It was 3 or 4 miles of nice, calm, trotting that I really enjoyed. As we were pulling into the vet check, I realized what a great loop that was. Really pretty, great footing, a few nice climbs- very enjoyable. We pulsed down immediately and headed to the truck for lunch. Once the horses were eating, it was time for me to eat. Brian Reeves had told me the night before that this ride was made for me, for two reasons: 1) he shares my love of riding in the desert, and 2) there is a Taco Bell at the base camp! That’s right! A Taco Bell, right there, 200 yards from where we were camped. Nothing for miles, except this Chevron mini-mart with a built in Taco Bell. This is a very good thing, indeed, a modern oasis. A little history is in order, I guess. I have probably eaten at Taco Bell a couple times a week for the last 25 years of my life. I have always loved it, and I seek it out. And here it is, at the ride camp! I went over in my riding clothes and ordered a mess of stuff and brought it back to camp. What a treat! I think there needs to be a new standing rule for ride management- all base camps must be within walking distance of a Taco Bell. Okay Steph- you are the Vice President this year, I’ll expect this to be taken care of by the next convention.
After a simply splendid lunch, (regular taco, chicken soft taco, burrito supreme, giant Dr. Pepper!) we tacked up and took the horses to the vet. It took a while to get our small herd all gathered back up, but all horses made it through fine. Zay looked good- no problems. Two checks down, two to go. Jackie wasn’t nervous, but I could tell she was thinking about the rest of the ride. Because the wind was starting. It was blowing pretty strong when we left camp and headed out to the second loop. We watched the winner (Susie Kelly, I think) come in just as we left. Her horse looked pretty incredible. Our herd trotted down the road in a nice, relaxed manner. Even Merri was able to let Maggie up front and just cruise along. Susan’s leg was beginning to bother her, but she kept on riding. We took part of the first loop up into the foothills, where we made a southerly turn and headed down the valley on a long jeep road with good footing, except for some rocky parts. Not rocky like Las Vegas or Death Valley, but enough to walk over in a few spots. It was a long, straight road, but we just kept on trotting. Susan’s leg injury was taking its toll, forcing her to stop trotting. She just could not keep her leg in the stirrup. The wind was beginning to really blow now, but it was mostly at our backs, so when you were trotting, it was windy, but if you stopped, it was pretty fierce. Gretchen gets the good guy award of the day when she volunteered to stay back with Susan and walk with her. They had about 8 or 9 miles to go to the finish, so they planned on just walking. Jackie, Merri and I went on ahead, heading for the last check at about 45 miles or so. The wind was still at our back, but I could tell that it was getting bad. There were clouds of dust overtaking us as we trotted. We rounded a mountain and saw the check- it was a couple of miles across the desert, but more into the wind. We made the turn, and yuck! The wind was blowing hard, and kept getting worse. The air temperature was probably only in the fifties, but that wind chill made it pretty miserable. We got to the check where we borrowed blankets for the horses from Miranda, the miracle crew. She’s always there, helpful and cheerful. Thanks a bunch, Miranda. The horses appreciated it. We stood there in the freezing wind and dust for our short hold, just knowing that we had to make that north turn and go right into that wind for the last 6 miles or so.
We left the check heading into a crosswind that was probably blowing 30 miles an hour or so, with higher gusts. It was a little hard to see because of the dust. Here comes the turn to the north- and whammo, it is now officially windy. Really windy. The wind kept getting stronger as the afternoon wore on, and we were heading straight into it. The horses did great, we just trotted along, not being able to talk, since you could not hear anyone anyway. I developed a new annoying injury that I would not have ever predicted- the chinstrap from my helmet was tugging really hard on my neck, since I have that plastic motorcycle helmet visor attached to my helmet. It was like a sail, blowing my head backwards very hard. I could not ride with my head tipped forward enough to keep the wind out of the visor, so I just had to ride with the wind doing it’s best to give me whiplash. It hurt so much I eventually had to ride with one hand, holding down my helmet. I ended up with a raw spot that I still feel today. I better drill some vent holes in that thing.
At least we only had a few miles to go in the miserable wind. It went pretty quickly, and as we neared the finish, Jackie and Zayante pulled in front of Holly and Maggie. Jackie and Zayante crossed the finish line at 3:06 pm, giving him 10,020 career miles. Merri wanted some pictures, so after a drink, Jackie pointed Zay back down the trail a bit, so she could come back across the finish line. Zay just headed back out, willing to trot the whole loop backwards if need be. That’s the kind of horse he is. It was a special moment watching them come across the line, Zay’s ears up, Jackie with a huge grin on her face. It’s too bad there were not more people standing out there, in the desert, in the middle of nowhere, in the gusting wind, to see history being made by such a special horse. To Zay it was just another finish. To everyone there, it was a very moving experience.
Down to the camp in the now blinding wind. We took them to the rigs to get de-tacked and cleaned up. Back to the vets for the last vet check- Zay looked just fine. He did it, just like I knew he would. Many people at the ride congratulated Jackie, and the local Arabian breeders group are presenting her with a custom blanket that celebrates the event. There was Zayante at the trailer, scarfing down his mash, just like the hundreds of mashes he has eaten at rides, as if nothing had happened. He would just go back on out there on the trail if Jackie wanted him to. Something did happen, Zayante. You are one of the best that ever lived. But you always were.
Oh yes, the rest of the ride. When Susan and Gretchen got to the last check, poor Rafique was very lame in the rear end. She was pulled, leaving poor Susan to trudge on alone. It would have been pretty easy to quit at that point, facing a 6-mile walk in ferocious winds and blinding dust with an injured leg. But no, she would not quit. She headed down the trial and completed the ride, regardless of the pain she was in. That’s an endurance rider. Holly completed the ride, looking as if she were just out for a stroll. Her pulse rates for the 4 vet checks were 48,48,40, then 36 at the vet out. Merri and Maggie finished just fine as well, making our herd four for five.
There were reports of the winds hitting gusts of 70 MPH later in the afternoon, I don’t know if it was that bad, but I know the wind kept getting worse as the afternoon wore on. The wind was really pushing my sleek, aerodynamic, (?) Honda Accord around on the drive back to Ridgecrest, and Brian reported that it took him an hour to drive 30 miles into the wind in his truck and camper, using a half tank of gas in the process. The dust in camp at the end of the ride was so bad, all you could do was to close your eyes. People were groping around with their heads down, walking into trucks and horse corrals. My eyes had so much dust in them that they still hurt two days later. We all had a little celebration dinner at a Mexican place in Ridgecrest- a fitting end to a very memorable day.
Let’s see- Zayante has 10,020 miles now. He’s still going down the trail- there are a few horses on that all time top 9 that might be in danger of losing another position on the ranking to this wonderful fellow. Time will tell, but all I know is I have enjoyed being part of his legacy, and hope to be able to continue to do so.
Nick Warhol
“Zayante’s biggest Fan”
Hayward, Ca.