With our completion of the fifty miler on day one of the Cuyama Ride a few
weeks ago, back-up Icelandic pony Skjoldur and I became a Decade Team - horse
and rider completing an endurance ride in each of ten years. I'm the proud
rider of two different Decade horses, since Remington and I became a Decade Team
two years ago.
With our completion of the hundred miler at the Git R Done ride a week and
a half ago, Remington became the PSW Region's first Platinum horse under the 100
Mile Horse Recognition Program. A horse reaches the Platinum level under
the 100 Mile Horse Recognition Program when it completes at least ten one
hundred mile rides and has at least 5,000 career miles. 13.3 hh
Remington now has ten one hundred mile completions and 10,300 miles. No
doubt there is great consternation in the secret inner workings of the AERC that
the only 10,000 mile horse anywhere still doing hundred milers isn't even a real
horse.
Incidentally, I was very impressed with how completely
unintrusive the FEI part of the Git R Done ride was in the ride experience
for us just plain folks. It was a nice surprise to see Mike Tomlinson, Jan
Stevens and Vonita Bowers at the ride. They did a great job in keeping
things just normal. We are really lucky to have Vonita as our USEF
representative. A couple of years ago there was a lot of complaining about
how jointly sanctioning with FEI ruined AERC rides. Maybe things have
changed since there sure wasn't anything to complain about at this ride unless
you didn't care for sand. If I put on another ride again, I might just add
an FEI division if that means Mike, Jan and Vonita will come and help.
Rumor has it that the Icelandic financiers who are taking over much of
European banking are using their money to convince the FEI to establish a
Northern division in recognition of the disproportionate participation of
Icelandic ponies in hundred mile rides. (Since both my ponies do hundred
milers, that's a 100% participation rate for the breed, right?) Consistent
with the apparent correlation of money and course design in the international
scene, Northern division FEI rides will be all about traversing fields of
volcanic rock and crossing glacial rivers. Probably during the winter, no
less.
