A Foxfire Ride Story - Long

[Linda Parrish <lindap@mail.sat.net>]

There were 15 starters in the 100 mile Foxfire ride, May 2. Shelley
Bridges on Windswift Barok won the ride; she was sponsoring Amber Boring
on ??. Amber placed second and won BC! I'm not sure of their time. (Who
expects the timer to remember such things?) 
Jim Wiseman placed third. Gail Fiebelman and Genie Wunderlich tied for
fourth. Paul Bryan finished in sixth place (I think this was his first
100 miler). Darolyn Butler and Karen DiCamillo tied for seventh. Ceci
Butler was 9th and Cameron Holzer and Laura Stoicescu tied for 10th
place. Mary Fields finished in 11th.
These results are unofficial. Vonita Bowers is the ride manager and has
the official results.

Following is a piece of the ride story:

It was threatening to rain, so we were moving all the paperwork inside
the "cookshack". Just threatening - some far off thunder rumbling and
maybe a few drops of rain.
Darolyn Butler on Albanet was sponsoring Cameron Holzer; Laura
Stoicescu, Karen DiCamillo, and Ceci Butler were also riding in "the
Butler bunch". They had been given the "OK" to leave on trail. 
Being timer, I was outside, watching to see who was leaving.  I thought
Darolyn was turned around speaking to someone in her group, but later
found out that she was tying something to the back of her saddle.
Anyway, I was watching this group when the lightening bolt struck
somewhere in front of all of them! Albanet jumped forward, sideways,
everyway and I saw Darolyn hit the ground. She was back on her feet in
seconds. The rest of the "bunch" were milling around. 
Becky Huffman & Shadowfax had set up camp close to the trailhead. They
were still on hold time when the lightening struck. Shadow went through
the safety netting pen and since this was a hold time, Becky had
loosened the girth. Of course, the saddle slipped which frighteded
Shadow even more. He ended up running/bucking through a couple of pens,
setting those horses loose. One of them was the Butler corral (Darolyn
hauls 8-10 horses to each ride). Thankfully this ridesite is fenced in
and those horses happened to be in a corner of the fencing. Several
people rushed to help corral them and someone shut the front gate.
(Thank YOU!!!) Meanwhile Shadow has bucked back the other direction and
ran into a trailer (not sure if he dented it or not!) Becky runs out
into all this confusion and shouts for Shadow. He comes running and
bucking right at Becky and stops at the last moment. We were all sure
she was about to be run over.

Out of all of this, the only injuries were: Shadow strained something
during the fiasco, so Becky pulled (the vets didn't think it was too
serious); Darolyn hit the ground on her back and the fanny pack bruised
her; a "buddy horse" for Amber Boring cut his leg and had to have some
sutures (Jerry Fruth said something about hauling all the way to Texas
just to get his horse injured???!!!<g>); and one of Darolyn's pit crew
was opening or shutting a trailer door and apparently the lightening hit
the trailer, because he had burns across the fingers that had been
holding the door. Someone said he was thrown from the trailer, I don't
know for sure.

Needless to say, this was a frantic couple of minutes for everyone
involved or watching. All the horses settled down fairly soon. As you
can tell from the first paragraph, Darolyn's bunch continued on and
finished. Mary Fields finished and received the turtle award with a ride
time somewhere in the neighborhood of 16:45 (you better believe I
remember when I get to go to bed!!!). 

The pulls in the 100 miler were:
Thomas Booth / Ibn Taam-Rud            Lameness
Betsy Reeves / ???		       Rider Option (Betsy was sick)
Becky Huffman/ Shadowfax	       Rider Option (see story above)

If you missed this ride, you sure missed some interesting, and for the
most part, fun times. Hope to see you at some of the Texas rides. We are
holding the scorching hot Old Glory I, II, III on July 17, 18, 19. There
is a 25/50 offered each day or the 3 day 150. Come join us!

Linda Parrish
Kennard, TX