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Re: [RC] Careful what you ask for Cindy - heidiI'm going back to some of my rides before rides were recorded: I finished Tevis three times, Northshore 100 once, Virginia City once. Offhand, I can't remember anything else, but it seems like there might be another one. I used to keep track of all my rides, but I'm not sure where the records are. Ah, Virginia City. THAT brings back fond memories! That 100 was my first-ever endurance ride, on my trusty old Surrabu (Abu Ben Surrabu's dad). I was just a wet-behind-the-ears ranch kid, and thought I had a pretty tough little horse. I wore bluejeans, and my knees looked like hamburger afterward. Pat Fitzgerald marked the trail, and years later, I heard the standard joke about how Pat would stand up at ride briefings and show the remains of a roll of ribbon, and say "Here's the roll I marked the 100 with, so you can see what color it is." His markings could be pretty sparse! (And I remember getting on the wrong side of an embankment, and having to scramble up it with Surrabu in the dark after I spied a ribbon on the upper end of it with my flashlight--lucky "hit" with the light, or I might be wandering around out there somewhere between Washoe Lake and Virginia City to this day... <g>) And it was certainly breathtaking, as the moon rose from behind me, and illuminated the Sierras--but I still couldn't see the hand in front of my face, because there was still a mountain blocking the moonlight on the ride side of the valley. :-) But we finished, at midnight on the dot, with a ride time of 17 hours. At any rate, Karen has found the 7th one for me that was listed on the database, and has also added my two that I did on old Surrabu pre-database.... (His second one was the Oregon 100, which was our 3rd endurane ride--that one was in 1975, and there had been a record set for 100 miles previous to that of 9:05, I think by Ken Coffman. At any rate, a wonderful mare named Misfit led the pack, with Elwin Wines aboard, at the 1975 Oregon 100--and she shaved 50 minutes off of the previous record, to finish in 8:15, on her way to the AERC National Championship that year. A total of 7 of us finished faster than that 9:05 mark that day--Surrabu's 8:46 was only good for 6th place! Yes, Virginia, there WERE fast 100s before the sheiks reinvented them... :-) And I lost a race for 5th that day to Elwin's son Forest--that was before junior riders had sponsors, too--when I blew a stirrup just about to the finish line... I think Lew Hollander was 4th--Forest and I almost caught him. And for those of you in the NW who know Cole Still and his wife Charlotte--Charlotte was in 7th with a sub-9 100 that day... Forest and I passed her with just a few miles to go, and she trotted in just several minutes behind us. We had 21 riders on that 100--but no other distances offered.) (Funny how a person can remember those picky details of those first few 100s...) Dang, I still miss that old horse.... Heidi ============================================================ ...but then, I do ride my horses a lot more than most people ~ Karen Chaton ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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