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Got back from the Ride & Tie Championship at Euer
Valley this afternoon and had a *blast*! Gah, that
was so much fun!

No, I didn't lose my grasp on sanity and do the
actual R&T <g> - I did the LD and did the next best
thing, which was to ride interspersed with the R&Ters.

They started the LD and the R&T simultaneously, so
most of the LDers were cowering at the furthest end
of the meadow, trying to avoid the stampede start.

Then, once we got going, riding with runners dotting
the trail, tied horses dotting the trail, and R&T horses
being galloped past at regular intervals was much more
fun than I ever thought it would be.

Initially I was nervous passing behind the tied horses,
but they are so well behaved (amazing, considering how
much adrenaline they must have seething through their
veins) and have no interest in kicking - they just want
to know when the rider's going to turn up, so they can
*go* again.

The rider-runners are *astonishingly* fast at what they
do. Admittedly, because of the way the timing worked
out, we were actually riding with the top three teams
(in the world, I guess, seeing as it was the world
championship) - but I'm still astonished at just how
much stamina these people have.

Most peculiar was riding along and passing Skip Lightfoot,
only to have him gallop past on the horse, and pass him
running again a minute or two later - but the weirdest
thing was I never seemed to see his partner gallop
past on the horse ;-)

This was the first ride for my busy-head gelding, Provo,
since he wrecked my knee in 1999 ;-) and he did great
and looked wonderful at the end - yay, Provo! He made
me proud again. All I have to do now, is see if I can
cope with doing a 50 on him. He's kind of rough and
today I'm having a hard time stepping down off things
(hardest was climbing down the steps to the hot tub -
ack).

Provo thought that chasing horses or runners was about as
much fun as he's had in years and was very disappointed
when we went out on Loop 2 and took the extra section of
trail with no R&Ters on it (they took a short cut, because
they were on different mileage than us). He cheered up
considerably when we rejoined the main trail.

Euer Valley was absolutely gorgeous to ride at and the
saddest thing is next year the R&T Championship will
be held at Fort Bragg in June. I'm sure it'll be lovely
there, but anyone who missed this event in Euer Valley
missed some great trails. The views were absolutely
lovely - on Loop 1 to the north and on Loop 2 looking
across to Donner Summit. The weather was perfect, the
footing good (in fact, the footing was so good, I missed
a ribbon turning because I was so mesmerized by the
niceness of it), the trail (despite it's complications)
was brilliantly marked (only blind people who forgot to
look for ribbons could get lost) and so much fun to follow.

Many thanks to Laura Christofk and her helpers for putting
on this great ride and I'm sorry to see it go - perhaps
Laura'll consider just putting on the endurance part alone?
I'm sure some riders were scared away by the thought of
the R&T (wimps<g>).

I took some pics and will put them up shortly and let you
know where to look.


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Lucy Chaplin Trumbull
elsie@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Repotted english person in Sierra Foothills, California
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