Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I finished the 80km at about the same time as Monica (H´s niece riding the 
120km) who was riding H´s horse, Kumparcita - a small gray mare,
nothing spectacular to look at, but amazing performer. She took Monica to the 
Junior World Championship in Italy
last year, finishing (I think) 4th and receiving BC. They finished 4 at this 
ride (the Young Rider division) and Kumparcita
was awarded BC again. A very happy Monica and Henrique at the awards.

We hung around the crewing area for a while (it was a muddy mess from all the 
water used for crewing) and then
back to the hotel for showers, and off to dinner. Henrique´s family, the other 
riders, Elizabeth and the officials, Reuben
and Theresa (from Chile) and lots of beer
and Caipirinha. Nice evening, sitting outside in the warm air.

Since it was a 2-day ride, we were up again (too) early and back to the ride 
site. I told Elizabeth I would be happy
to work today so she gave me a job as vet scribe for Pepe, my favorite 
Uruguayan vet! It is always interesting to be
on the ´other side´ of a competition , the perspective can be quite different.  
It was a fun day, punctuated in the
afternoon by a heavy summer rain. It let loose just as the last riders were 
coming in, and really poured, but cleared
up in time for the BC judging and awards.

Brazilian awards ceremonies are unlike anything I´ve ever seen...It´s a very 
big deal, with microphone announcements
and blaring music to anounce everyone, and everything. And Now, The Tenth Place 
Finisher Of The Sixth Annual Bragança
Paulista Haras Endurance... etc, Ta ta ta da! For every rider it was a big 
deal. And the top five finishers arranged themselves
on a stepped platform, with the first place top and center. More music, photos, 
Ta dum. Theme music from Chariots of Fire,
2001 Space Odyssey, popular disco music, etc. It´s grand fun! The officials and 
VIP´s line up to give the awards, the riders
have to run the gauntlet of handshakes and kisses before they recieve their 
trophy and ribbons. Elizabeth spotted me taking
photos when the awards started and called me up (I heard lots of Portuguese 
words from the announcer punctuated by ´Los Estados
Unidos´ ´Pinamar´ ´Endurance Net´ ´estephania teeteria´) and then there I was 
handing out ribbons and kisses and trophies with
the others :) Fun.

Everybody left soon after the awards, and I left with Henrique, Amarilis and 
Theresa (a young vet student who would be
apprenticing with H for the next month). We went to Rueben´s (Chile) hotel and 
H decided to stay there for the night.
The next day he would be taking Rueben to see some horses that were for sale, 
and the first horses were near Bragança,
so another hotel, and one more day of adventure.

Monday was a fun day - a lot of driving - but a lot of new country and 
landscape to see, and some great horses to look at.
We stopped at one place to see a horse that had previously been purchased for a 
fairly large sum and did a few 80km races, but
then the owner had financial problems and the horse was no longer a prime 
interest. He was pretty thin and scraggly, but
obviously a well bred horse (Polish bloodlines), tall and strong looking, and 
sound. (thumbs up - he would go to H´s stable
to put some weight back on and receive good care).  It was a very small, 
run-down little place. Theresa (with Reuben) and
I were wandering around looking at things, and peered into an open shed area 
where two men were running sugar cane
stalks through a grinding machine for extracting the juice.

Curiosity got the best of the men (who were these women?) as
well as the horse shoppers, and eventually we were taken down below, into a 
small closed shed, to find a still - they were
extracting the sugar cane juice and distilling it to make bootleg Cachaça, a 
type of rum (used in Caipirinha drinks). It was
quite the setup, with a wood burning stove in one corner, a network of pipes 
for the juice, water and distillate, and a bucket
for the finished product which dripped out, ´pinga´by ´pinga´. And of course 
they offered us all a shot glass of the clear stuff,
straight from the still. A most memorable moment, in a dark shed in the 
backwoods of Brazil, tossing a shot of bootleg ´Pinga´,
Bragança Moonshine :)

That´s Brazil...

Steph

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