Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

 I wasn't there, but I had a friend who went to that ride, he too was spending LOTS of time on the ground saving his horse, he ended up breaking his ankle in several places when he mis-stepped on one of those rocks.  Taped it up and went on down the trail for another 25-30 miles.  Then pulled.

 

I saw (and have a wonderful picture of "Beamer") at an Alabama ride after his first ROC win.  Truely amazing horse....and he was big.

 

Jody

 

Laura Hayes <mark@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I can give you some insight into this ride---I crewed for the winning team, Brian Weaver and Annalea Moonbeam, both from Pennsylvania.  I was dating Brian at that time (ah, we were soooo young back then!!).  The ride was held at Brianhead Utah, which is a ski area way south of Salt Lake.  I am not certain of the exact elevations, but I think I remember that base camp was near 10,000 feet and the ride climbed to over 14,000.  The landscape was absolutely unforgiving with rocks, elevation, not alot of natural water, and heat.  Wayne McMinn and I drove well up the mountain above all the other crews and since we didn't know if we were actually allowed to be there, we crewed every horse that came by, not just our own.  We made sandwiches for exhausted riders and watered every horse, using all of our available water.  John DePeitra was making a video and came along and filmed us.  I hadn't seen the video until a couple years ago - too funny!!

 

Brian is an incredible athlete, and at 25, was probably in the prime of his fitness.  He actually ran on foot for most of the up hills and all the down hills.  When you watch the video of horses going by on the trail, he is always the only rider on foot.  He wasn't exactly built like a runner, either, being about 5'5" and fairly 'sturdy'.  At one point in the video you see him swing up from the ground at a trot- pretty cool.

 

Brian's MO was to sit back, save horse and win in the end, and just like twice at the OD and twice at Big Horn, among many others, he did just that at ROC.  He was midpack for most of the ride.  At the last check, he had a sandwich and a beer and started out in 4th or 5th place, going down the mountain to the finish in the dark.  He crossed the line alone---one of the most thrilling moments of my endurance career.

 

It was a brutal trail, though and those that were not lame or tired and pulled, were overtime.

 

Interestingly, Brian didn't own Beamer, and had never ridden him before that day.  Beamer had won the ROC a couple years before with his owner, Annette Taschner. 

 

I just talked to Brian a few days ago, he is going to break my four year old for me--he is an excellent horseman, and made endurance look easy - even on other people's horses.

 

Laura Hayes

 

 

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