The Quicksilver Fall Classic, October 2001
(More fun in the Water) *
* (Gary Fend will no doubt enjoy this, and will probably add the incident to his historical list of H2O related episodes)
Judy and I were not really planning on riding the annual Quicksilver ride this year, since we had some other rides scheduled, and Warpaint, the spotted Wonder Horse, needed his time off after Tevis to get better. Besides- we have been around that Quicksilver park so many times now I could do the loop in my sleep, backwards, while blindfolded. Those same old roads, over and over. But what ho! It seems those crafty Quicksilver club dudes (we are going to have to join that group one of these days), decided to hold an all-new ride. Not a new ride in the same old park, no sir. This was a new ride in a new park. Henry Coe State Park was the chosen site. I think there is more than one Henry Coe Park in the bay area, since I swear I have ridden my bike by it somewhere up in the mountains above the Peninsula. But the ride was at the Big Mac of all the state parks, the one down off highway 101 near Gilroy. This place is almost 90,000 acres. That is so big it is almost hard to comprehend. The funny thing is neither Judy or I have ever ridden here, since it’s a bit of a drive from Hayward. With all the close by, cool places we have to ride in the East Bay we don’t usually get that far south. Live and learn, I guess. Guess what? We’ll be going back soon.
Lucky for me, Warpaint’s Tevis injury was really slight. He got foot sore due to a shoeing error. We were not paying close enough attention to his feet and let the breakover get out of wack. After our vet beat us about the head and shoulders with a stout stick, (then he took some xrays for the farrier), we fixed the spotted beast’s feet and he was fine in no time. We decided to ride the event at the very last minute and called the ever friendly, cheerful, courteous, and always helpful ride secretary, MaryBen for entries. I packed up the creaky War Pony and the youthful Wabi into the trailer and headed south on Friday afternoon. The traffic wasn’t too bad down through San Jose, but I did have one problem finding the place. The instructions said take 101 S to the Leavsley road exit, then left, right, blah, blah. I looked for a long time for a Leavesley road sign, and was lucky to see it as I drove right by the exit. There were no signs at all for the exit, except for the one sign on the exit itself. No Biggie, I just went another exit, hung a U-turn, and headed back. As luck would have it, I pulled off the freeway right behind the Becky Hart mobile. Cool! I just followed them right into the park. I still love that license plate on that trailer- Rio 1 IT. That’s got to be one of the best ever. I pulled in and set up camp, happy that I was not pulling a 40 foot long horse trailer in there. Some of those washouts were kind of nasty. Since Judy was working until later, I had to get the horses vetted in, so I borrowed a neighbor who helped me by taking Wabi down while I took the pulling Appy. Wabi? Who is Wabi? He’s our newest horse, we have actually had him for a year and a half now. He’s a really nice, grey Arabian gelding by Danshab that we are getting started. I got him as a replacement for Shatta when he was retired at the prime age of 12. Wab’s a good horse, but he has a whole lot less oomph that Warpaint or Shatta. He’s still young, and getting better, but I’m not crazy about riding a horse who does not seem real interested in going. So- Judy is riding Wabi, and I ride Warpaint. The world is perfect! She was going to do the 25 on him, it would be his second ride.
Speaking of poor Judy, she finally showed up at around 9pm or so. I won’t embarrass her by telling everyone how far south she drove on Highway 101, but she fell victim to that road sign problem as well. I had everything set for the morning, while Wabi made every attempt to eat all the hay we had. I thought Warpaint ate a lot! This little spode ate five flakes of hay! Crunch, crunch, crunch all night long. I made Judy her salad and beer, by the time she finished it was bedtime. We awoke to a nice, cool morning and began getting the horses ready. Judy was cleaning the Wab man, since he had rolled during the night, and found a problem. The little tuna had gotten his right front leg stuck somewhere and had a nice cut on his lower leg. Yep, he’s lame on it. That was the quickest ride Judy ever did. Bummer! She was out already! Disappointed, she gave the little spud some more hay and helped me get ready. I left the truck a few minutes before seven- Wabi made a couple of calls, but some more hay shut him right up. This is good. Judy said farewell, and be careful with my Horse! I rode to the start and just kept on going after giving Steve the ride manager my number. Warpaint was being his usual self, just trying to hammer and run. I went “briskly” along the first mile or so, passing a few horses who were not at Churchill Downs this fine morning. I came across a nice looking horse that was going a nice pace, being ridden by a Quicksilver club member named Dawn Perrine. The horse was just cruising along, so we rode together for a while. We caught other QS people- Mike Maul on his new horse (big dude, looked nice), Hugh Vanderford on a strong looking beast. We chatted as we attacked the first big hill- a very long and sort of steep climb on nice roads. Dawn and I ended up together, since our horses seemed to be pacing very well with each other. In fact, they were getting along very well. I was shocked when she told me Mikey was a stallion. He was totally cool! I have never really ridden with a stallion for any period of time in a ride before, but these two were buds already. The trail kept climbing on these nice roads, and when we got to the top of a big ridge we looked to the right. EGAD! Was I in an airplane? It sure seemed so. What a view! You can see past at least three ranges of mountains. I would have stopped for a tea party if I had the time, well okay, maybe not. It was neat enough just to look at it in the early morning.
We went up and down a lot of hills and valleys, never being on anything level for more than a minute or so. Sort of like Grant Ranch, but just with bigger hills, and what views! Before long we rolled into the trot by check at nine miles, where Michelle Shaw took a look and said have fun! We got a drink of water and went on our way, still on these rolling roads. After a couple of miles we suddenly turned off onto a really cool single track trail. How did they find this? It was not very used, that’s for sure. I love single track anyway, so Warpaint and I led the way, trotting through the trees. Dawn and I were talking about all kinds of stuff- she was glad to be back riding after knee surgery a few months ago. We made our way down a long, steep canyon (that I knew we were going to have to go back up) and turned onto another trail, this one was even less used. In fact- I don’t know if there was really a trail! We just rode up this long, steep ridge that just happened to be the highest ridge of the three that were going up the mountain. It was one of the coolest trails I have been on in a long time. It was marked with ribbon on bushes- you just sort of worked your way up the ridge, since there was no where else to go. Up and up and up, always a little higher than the other ridges, so you could see the incredible views. We got into the manzanita bushes, that I love and hate. They are the coolest shrub/tree, yet the toughest thing that ever grew. (except for Joshua Trees, but that’s another story.) I call them 4110 Chrome Moly bushes, cause if you hit one, you give, they don’t. Higher and higher we climbed- both horses powering up without so much as a hesitation. Don’t you just love that? Up at the summit there was another great view, and then an airstrip. Right. Make that a dirt road. Ain’t no 747 going to land here. We were treated to some semi-level roads to trot on that led us to the first check, next to a big lake, where Ken Cook had things all neat and tidy. They had this water pump in the lake and a fire hose that was powerful enough to fill the water troughs back at base camp. We vetted through just fine, and I even swiped a chocolate donut from the back of Ken’s truck. Yummy! The horses had hay and apples for fifteen minutes, we left right on time and started climbing again. One more big climb, mostly walking, led us to another summit, from where we could see where the lunch check was going to be. It was WAY, WAY down there. It was a long downhill, all the way down that mountain to the lunch check at 30 miles. We walked a lot of it, since there was some rocky stuff in parts of the roads.
The check was nice to see, since there was Judy waiting for me. She left Wabi at camp, after giving him more hay. If he had one of those automatic feeders, like the kind you put cat food in, he would eat for days. Warpaint cooled down quickly and vetted through fine. It was nice to sit in the shade and have lunch, since it was getting warm. I got in just as the leaders were heading out. The break was refreshing, but I wanted to get back on the horse, since the trail out of lunch started right up the hill, in the trees, on a single track. Dawn and I headed out, with Warpaint still jamming up the hill. The trail out was indeed single track, for a bunch of miles. It went way up the mountain, and was very steep in certain places. We spent a lot of time walking up that mountain, and stopped at a cow pond for a drink. I think Warpaint drank 30 scoops of water. Now we hit the best part of the ride, at least in my opinion. We were treated to a few miles of really nice, rolling, single track trail where we trotted almost the whole thing. The scenery was a lot like Sunol and the Ohlone wilderness, but longer and prettier. And there was NO-ONE HERE! No hikers, bikers, dogs, cats, taxis, or anything! What a treat. We blazed down the trails until we made another turn uphill. More uphill? Yep- we walked up another eight hundred foot or so climb to the top of a mountain. If it was clear I bet you could see anything from up there. Over the top and down the other side, onto another neat single track that you could trot on. It had been a while since they had a drink, so I was happy to see a water trough off the trail about fifty feet or so. We went over and hopped down while the horses drank big. I gave Warpaint some salts when he was done drinking, and was putting the syringe away when he stuck his nose back in the trough to rub. Uh oh. Guess what. Yep- he got the hook in his kimberwicke bit stuck in a loop of wire that was holding the trough to a 2X4. I don’t think you could have done that if you tried, but he did. He pulls his head up, and he’s stuck. Okay, so what’s he do? He proceeds to yank his head up, and in doing so, he picks up the water trough with him. This is a real trough, one of those big, Rubbermaid 90 gallon jobs or so. And it is half full of water! So now he’s in startled mode, and starts to back up, with the entire trough attached to his face. The PVC pipe is broken and water is spraying all over the place. Mike the good horse starts to move away at the commotion, but Dawn holds him steady. Now the Appy is bolting backwards, with the trough on his face, water flying everywhere, with me trying to get to him. He picks up speed, causing more sloshage, dousing me in the process. I just have this thing about getting soaked at endurance rides, I guess. Luckily for everyone involved, the hook on his bit broke off after he backed up a few feet, causing the trough to hit the ground, right in my path. I tripped over the stupid thing while trying to get to the horse, going down in more water and mud. At least the stupid thing is off his face!
What’s Warpaint do? He turns, and starts trotting away. I’m running after him, asking him to whoa. (yeah, right. What’s the point?) I figure okay, he will go down the trail, and since it’s it is single track, no matter what direction he chooses, he will come to a rider, or the vet check, since it is only about 2 miles away. Robert Ribley on Murr the Blur was only a few minutes ahead of us, I bet Robert will stop the stupid Appy. All these things are going through my mind as I chase the horse, (I’ve done this before, eh’ Gary?) but I start to worry as Warpaint crosses the course and just goes out over the virgin hill, still trotting, and away from me, across the grass, down the steep hill, towards a canyon. Cripes! Now I’m remembering the three things they told us about this park at the riders meeting- Don’t get lost, don’t get lost, and don’t get lost! There is no help out here, and it’s a big place. Okay- time to get serious. The horse had to slow down to get across a really gnarly gully, which he crossed, thank you, giving me a chance to catch up a little. I was on the downhill side of him, so I blazed down this hill, cutting him off, or at least keeping him from going down any further. He sort of slowed down when he saw me down below him, and turned back up the hill. I took off at a dead run, up this steep hill, in the weeds and rocks, and managed to get next to him and grab his reins. We stood there for a minute or so, while my pulse got back down from my red line.
Poor Dawn wasn’t sure what to think, since I just disappeared down the hill, chasing the horse. She mounted up and started down the trail, and was surprised to see me trudging back up the hill about a quarter-mile from where we departed. I got up to the trail, got on his back, and he just starts trotting along like nothing happened. I pounded down my water and wished I had more. I have not worked that hard in a while. That was exciting! Nothing like a little extra activity to liven up a ride. At least I was cool from the water that had doused me. Dawn and I pondered what the following riders would think when they got to the tank. She said it was near the trail, upside down, white PVC pipe broken, and water coming out into a little ravine. I felt better when the next water trough was only a mile further. Warpaint drank out of this one too, but I was a little more careful. We rolled into the last check where we had a 15 minute hold. Michelle did a great job getting us through while she was working on a horse that was having some trouble. I told them about the tank, thinking I better give Steve my credit card number at the finish. Then someone brought up the Warpaint off the cliff story, then the Warpaint jumps the Honda Civic story. We all agreed he’s certainly entertaining.
We rode out of the check with a few miles of rolling roads, the back down that really long downhill to the flat road we rode out on in the morning. We hooked up with Robert and Murr the Blur, and let me tell you, that mule is the Warpaint of mules. He really trucks along. We literally smoked down the last 3 miles to the finish, going faster than I thought that mule would go. The three of us slipped in in 10th, 11th, and 12th, with me in the middle. Warpaint vetted out fine, the vet said he looked a little foot sore, but okay. Back to the trailer, where Wabi is eating. I was famished, and was really pleased at the dinner. It was great! A Mexican buffet that was excellent. Best ride dinner in a long time. The good news was that only 2 riders got pulled in the 50, and I think none were pulled in the 30, or maybe just a couple. My hero Julie Suhr finished the 50, along with her daughter Barbara White. I still can’t believe that’s what, 47 Tevis buckles going down the trail between those two! The mind reels……. My buddy Rebecca and her sister finished the 50, but she wasn’t on her super cool dude horse, Moose. He’s out with a suspensory injury.
The ride was indeed tough, but was absolutely wonderful in every other aspect. On a horse like Warpaint it was a walk in the park. (Or, a run down and up a hill for me.) I’ll do it again! Way to go, Steve. It was fun.
Nick Warhol
Hayward, Ca.