I do know I contacted a new ride manager in the
Reno area and volunteered to drag ride a section and was told they didn't use
or need drag riders..their perogative.
This was my ride that Ranelle volunteered for. As she said, it was
our perogative, and our knowledge of the trails, that led us to believe we did
not need drag riders. We ran a ~20 mile loop out of camp in an area that
has cell reception for nearly the entire trail. Most of the trail was
jeep roads (since it was a night ride and I wanted the safest trails possible)
or not far from jeep roads. The farthest riders were from camp directly
was no more than 8 miles. We marked the entire trail with a 4WD Ranger
and I used my big ole' Dodge extended cab 2500 to pick-up the 90% of the
markers, so obviously not too tight nor technical of a trail.
We did have one rider go down out on the trail and need assistance.
He was the front runner of the 50-miler. I had my
(Management's) cell number printed on all of the vet cards and he was
able to call his crew in camp. I called my husband who was out with the
Ranger and he met the rider on trail, before ANY other riders. We were
able to speak with him directly, my husband took him back to common
trail/road, and we were able to drive out there with a trailer to pick him
up. The horse luckily just has some superficial scrapes that didn't need
treatment.
I know this would be abnormal for a LOT of rides, to have this kind of
communication and availablity to their riders. But I knew my trails and
knew how we would handle any sort of emergency. I might not have been
able to have this ride if drag riders were required, as we were fairly tight
on volunteers anyways. And in the case of our 1st place 50-rider, help
would have been a LOT longer in coming if he would have had to wait for a drag
rider.
