Ridecamp: [RC] Thanking a friend

I'm so lucky to have met this gray horse.  Gray was definitely NOT my favorite color, nevermind all those fleabit marks, I foolishly thought they were ugly.  Its so drab and really hard to get a good shiny coat on a gray horse.  But there he was, all 15.3 hands of him.  The very first time I met him was at a NATRC ride in Arizona, Henry Logan was riding him and it was Harca's first ride.  He was really PUMPED UP (the horse, not Henry <g>).  I remember saying "what an awesome looking horse" to Henry.  Not much of a response from Henry because he was busy staying on <g>.  A year later I was crewing for Henry and his wife, Helen, and also this amazing horse that Henry was riding at the Tevis.  I will never forget watching Henry and Harca cross the finish line.  I thought right then and there "This is the most idiotic thing anybody could ever want to do" (little did I know that I'd be rid
ing Tevis on this awesome horse the next year).

Henry had shoulder surgery the next year and Harca needed conditioning so I got to ride him.  I  remember coming home and telling my husband about this amazing horse.  How it was like driving a truck all your life and then suddenly driving a Porsche.  Harca was definitely a Porsche.  After much badgering and pestering, I convinced the Logans to sell Harca to me.    

Our first year together the big goal was Tevis, but that didn't quite work out -- muscle cramp at Robinson flat and we were pulled.  Helen Logan (Harca's other owner ;) decided that the Virginia City 100 was a good goal and I was all for that.  We went and finished 12th.  We kept setting these goals that Harca just made seem easy.  The Outlaw Trail seemed like a reasonable challenge when viewed from this incredible horse's back.  Not one thing on that very challenging ride was too much for us.  We finished 14th overall on all 5 days.  I will never forget looking up this rock slide and thinking "No way does the trail go there".  Harca got tired of waiting for me to make a decision and up we went following these little tiny pink dots that marked the trail.  He was right as usual.

Along the way we won a couple of NATRC National Championships too as well as the Championship Challenge. Went all the way to Texas once and he had to camp in a used car lot on the way home because of mechanical problems with the motorhome.  He never complained.  We went to Colorado and rode in the Rockies.  The only time he ever said "NO" was on that trip, we tried to lay over between rides at a Fairgrounds and Harca informed me that he did NOT do box stalls.  We worked around it. He showed me the Grand Canyon in style, I've always felt so lucky that I got to see it with him.  (He was more interested in all the good grass along the side of the trail, but I think he knew that I loved being there with him). He patiently watched after that ride while I tried to figure out how to change a flat on the horse trailer in the middle of the night (thank you Dean Jackson for happening along when you did).

Last month he started having seizures...and I had to make the incredibly hard decision to put him down.  The diagnosis is (after autopsy) a type of tumor in his brain called Cholesterol Granuloma.  There will never be another horse like him for me, we just clicked.  If you have a horse like that in your life, please go give him (or her) a big hug.

Thank you Harca, you made me brave and I will always miss you.

Sylvia