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Santa Fe Trail Horse Race meeting in Dodge City

What do you do with a thousand horses in your front yard? That sounds like a second grade riddle, but it turns out to be a question with genuine meaning. It's one way of thinking about the logistical challenges of an exciting equestrian event to be held in rural Kansas and beyond in 2007.

Rob and Beverly Phillips live near Lawrence, Kan. Rob is coordinator of the Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race and Endurance Ride. As described previously, this event is an 800 mile endurance ride along the approximate route of the old Santa Fe Trail.

Rob says, "One of the main objectives of the race is to educate the public not only on the national historic Santa Fe Trail, but also to introduce the sport of endurance riding to thousands."

The ride will start in Santa Fe, New Mexico on Sept. 3 and end in Independence, Missouri on Sept. 15, 2007. Horses and riders will be traveling Tour de France style, in that they will ride a 50 mile route each day and then be transported to the next leg.

Overnight stops will be at temporary race villages containing comprehensive services. Those will be located in rural places such as Burlingame, Council Grove, Lyons, Larned, Dodge City, and Elkhart. Elkhart, for example, has a population of 2,156 people.

The ride is open to all breeds of horses. Teams of riders who meet the qualifications are encouraged to enter.

Rob Phillips says, "It is our desire to produce a world class endurance event of riding 800 miles celebrating the Santa Fe Trail." The ride has been sanctioned by the American Endurance Ride Conference, the official sanctioning body for equestrian endurance riding in the U.S. and Canada.

Partners and sponsors of the event include RFD TV, The U.S. Postal Service, the New Mexico Sports Authority, the Bureau of Land Management Mustang and Burro Adoption Program, and the Kansas Lottery. The Imus Ranch, a working cattle ranch for kids with cancer, has been designated as the race charity. The Postal Service will even sponsor a special Pony Express ride.

It sounds like a great event. But it means that a throng of horses will be coming through Kansas, with all the riders and trailers and feed and spectators and media and everything else that accompanies them. They will need housing, food, water, and lots of services. So back to our original question: What do you do when a thousand horses show up at your doorstep?

Rob Phillips wants to answer that question in the best possible way. He is partnering with communities along and near the trail route so as to create opportunities and ideal experiences for everyone involved.

On Jan. 3 and 4, 2007, the Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race is holding a meeting in Dodge City to explain this project and see how people can get involved and benefit from it. The meeting title is--what else--What Do You Do with 1000 Horses in Your Front Yard? Speakers include Rob Phillips; John Conoboy of the National Park Service; Dennis Latta of the New Mexico Sports Authority; Janet Starnes-Burch of the U.S. Postal Service; Mike Hansen, executive vice president of RFD-TV; and more. I'm involved with the program as well.

Topics to be discussed include becoming a race village host city, conducting other possible Santa Fe Trail events, television coverage of the event, the economic impact, and how can communities along the trail maximize their participation in this event? For more information, contact Rob Phillips at 785-218-3265.

So what do you do with a thousand horses in your front yard? Well, you feed 'em and water 'em and put 'em up for the night. Then you invite their riders in for supper and entertain 'em. In a larger sense, that is what will be happening with the horses, riders, spectators and more who will be part of this event. We commend Rob and Beverly Phillips and all those involved with this project for making a difference with their creativity and vision.

Article

Comments

Hi,

I have been trying to find a way to post a comment on Imus Ranch and haven?t been very successful so I decided to try to write to a few of his major supporters. I very much agree with Imus being fired, but feel it should have been done a couple weeks before the ?nap-haired hos? comment. I don?t watch the show much, as I feel that Imus is a rude egotistical jerk who doesn?t care about anybody but himself, but did happen to be watching a couple of weeks before he made that comment. On the show I was watching he had the ranch children in the studio with him, his wife commented something to the effect that the kids were scared of him because he was so gruff, his comment about it was he called the kids ?little Bastards? I think his exact words were ?Well, the ungrateful little bastards?, ON THE AIR, RIGHT TO THE LITTLE KIDS FACES!!! I was appalled, I feel that he should have been taken off from the air right at that minute, and his ranch taken away immediately, how do you build a Childs self esteem by calling them little bastards. Talk about racist, he was degrading every child, not just Blacks, or Hispanic, but every race!! This has been made a racist issue when it never should have been allowed to go that far, it has nothing to do with racism, but the fact that he is a very bad person who doesn?t deserve to be getting rich of from these poor little kids.

I have worked with the Make A Wish Foundation and other Special Olympics events, plus worked with numerous handicapped children. I am working at a Resort Ranch and would love to have kids of any kind come, but it is hard to get started and takes a lot of money to do something. I don?t understand why somebody like him who doesn?t give a darn about the kids, and is in it for himself to get rich, not because he cares about the kids, can get millions of dollars from people like you, but somebody like myself who loves kids like that and has seen what an experience like this does for them, can?t find a way to get something like that going.

I would love to hear back from you as to your opinions on this, I am sure you can get the show I am referring to from the archives and hear for yourself him calling the cancer children little bastards!! The show would have aired sometime between the 26th of March and the 30th of March.

Thank you and Have a Great Day!
Sincerely,
Twyla Gallino

- - posted by

Twyla : 8:51 AM

If anything good comes about with all this Imus stuff perhaps it will be that some more charity
organizations will actually secure
a rating or info on who they sponser to secure their donations
from. Ole Imus can flip/flop every which way but loose when it comes to what he says or who he
has supported depending on if and when he gets some $$$.
And if that is not bad enough him and his wife attempted to become
charity organizations themselves
in order to build and pay for "The Imus Ranch" in New Mexico. The state of New Mexico and our Local
News Outlets have been tracing Imus for years now as seems no
one feels his charity work was
done in order to have such kids
actually staying at the Plush
Country Castles they had built
for their own home/empire. Sure
maybe the kids get something out of it all however it appears
that Imus Greed is really the
reason for it all in the first place. And also more $$$ must
also be in the game when ole
Patrick Gottsch owner of RFDTV
went so far out of his way to
support Imus's Santa Fe Trailride.
Perhaps RFDTV did so to avoid
a multimillion Buck lawsuit from
ole Imus. Why do I state all this
well to me something just seems
out of the norm here and mix $$$
and tax breaks and using ones own
mansions as the headquarters well
what else can we say? Anyone
that freely can use words of
Nappie Headed Peoples create
a big flag to me.

NMcowboy

- - posted by

Anonymous : 8:18 PM