Life at Gotta Go Ranch - February 27, 2007

Merri spent some time with the horses yesterday and captured some of the more comic moments in the horse paddock. She has done a good job of catching the subtle messages from Billy and Redford's lower lips. And then there is Austin, the Walt Disney dog...


Contrast the horses to our evening, which involved too much technology (all photos in today's blog are courtesy Merri Melde). Steph and Merri left for an interminable trip to Malaysia today. Be sure to follow Merri's traveling stories and photos from the link on the right.

Riding at Camp Creek on Sunday, February 26, 2007

We took Merri Melde out for a ten-mile ride on Sunday at Camp Creek. Billy had a good 20-mile ride on Saturday, so a ten-mile loop over the hills with easy footing seemed appropriate. Redford (left) continues to progress well, and Rusty had a good ride on Rocky, especially since he had not really been ridden in a week. Rocky is a hill-eater.
Redford at the beginning of the wash in the box canyon.
Rusty and me at the half-way point. Billy and Rocky look ready for more...
Redford contemplating his next meal...



















Billy taking advantage of some rich desert grass.
Redford, the sweetest horse on earth.

FV Classic Ga'zi and FV Aul Mystery - Images by Merri Melde

Check out Merri Melde's site at www.thequestrianvagabond.com

The Rock and Ditch Riders, or Land of The Sand

January 28, 2007

There is nothing more appealing to me than an endurance ride that starts less than 90 minutes from my home. Sleeping in your own bed on the night of the ride is the ultimate luxury.

That is one of a score of reasons why Land of the Sun is a must-do ride. Arizona in January means you may get temperatures in the high 60s, so while New York City was enjoying bone-chilling temperatures in the low 20s, we got to ride in t-shirts this weekend. It goes a long way to offsetting the inhumane Arizona heat of June, July and August. I’ll take it. Thank you very much

CR Zebra Splash is one of those horses you just get spoiled on: he eats, drinks and pees without blinking, and just loves to truck down the trail. He is one of those magical horses that makes the complexity of a successful 50-mile ride surprisingly simple. He camps like a champ by eating his way through the night before. Clydea Hastie has done an incredible job of making this horse a gentlemen with a taste for moving forward.


The start of the ride was a textbook example of how to do it with 66 horses. I started out with Clydea on Czar, Barb Debi, Steph and John. Some were skeptical about the safety of riding the first two miles next to a blacktop road, but it presented no challenges for us. We walked, then we slow trotted, then we medium-trotted, and by mile two we were moving out at an impressive working trot. The ground beneath us began to roll up and down as the sun rose and the horses settled. We turned left off the dirt road and onto the first of countless washes filled to the brim with deep, sandy sand.



And then the hypnotic effect began. We would alternate stretches of unforgiving washes with stretches of rolling trails of less forgiving decomposed granite and rock. The views were powerful and always changing, and the trail was the kind that made you focus on every step; the kind where the left foot - right foot order keeps you in the moment longer than anything else can. The horses constantly pulled and renegotiated speed and before we knew it we had arrived at the first vet check at 12 miles or so.

The in-timers pulled us in and sent us on to the pulse-takers who sent us on to the vets, who sent us on to the stations of warm mash, carrot chunks and flakes of alfalfa. The horses slurped and slopped and we headed for the food services table to fill our hands with sandwiches, granola bars, fruit and cookies. Clydea pulled three Starbucks Double Shots out of her cantle bag and we slurped and slopped too. The 30 minutes passed quickly. We shed a layer, applied sunblock and got back on board.

Zeb, I’ve decided, has it all figured out. He does not challenge other horses or humans; he just wants his rider to sit up and hang on. He’d rather pick his own speed, but will go at the speed you ask of him. His ears stay forward; his gaze ahead and there has yet to be anything at a ride that makes him take a step off his course for the finish line. I could learn a thing or two from his focus, but really I just can’t get enough of his metronome gaits that simply don’t falter.

The trail settled into the contrast of ditch versus rock, and the lure of the transition back and forth between extremes consumed us. Rock, ditch, rock, ditch, rock. All the while the sun was rising, the day becoming more beautiful and the horses eager to find their own groove that would get them to the finish line. Sit up, hang on: I’ll get you there.

The 25-mile point came sooner than we expected – sooner than I’d care to admit. The hour hold at base camp was a welcome pause in comfortable chairs in the sun with bowls of chili and beef & barley soup. Zeb did not lift his head from hay, water and slop.

We headed off to the second loop. The miles seemed longer; the sand deeper and the rocks more jagged.

It seemed like the sand would have to take its toll. Surely we would lose a shoe or take the edge off the horse as we trotted away from camp? But the gait remained strong and Clydea and I, now without our companion riders, grew quiet. There must have been ten checkpoints manned by the Sheriff’s Posse who greeted us with smiles, water and a request for numbers, always reporting on the progress of their riders to the radio gods. Miles began to look like the preceding miles and the familiar last climb out of the wash and up to the airstrip came slower than I had imagined. I was ready for the greeting by the line of in-timers, pulse-takers and vets. This check was also alive with helpful 4-H girls proudly guarding their horse refreshment stations with limitless supplies of staples.

We were obviously ready to take on the return to camp because we were at the out-timer’s station with four minutes left on the clock. Names are always the first thing I forget when I meet people, but it will be hard to forget the charm and generosity of the lady who counted down the minutes while we waited. As we looked for a dip or a log to ease the remount onto our horses, she boasted membership in the club of the Rock and Ditch Riders. It is the group of riders in Wickenburg who cannot mount without a rock or a ditch. I was proud to reciprocate by letting her know that we were proud members of the HBAFGMS (pronounced Hubbafuggams). She enjoyed knowing that the name was the acronym for Hell’s Bitches and a Few Good Men. I reassured her that I was one of the good men.

A mere 12 miles and we would be home. The riders had spread out and the hubbub of the morning check was gone. We got to ride completely alone. We learned from more Posse reps of some riders who had gone off trail, but the horses knew they were heading home and the lure of the finish line kept their focus on the job at hand.

We finished at about 3:30. The horses had deep, shiny eyes and an appetite. I took a long hot shower and headed down to the awards dinner at the community center, where the band played and the front-runners were awarded with hand-made artwork. The rest of us got sweatshirts and a meal that will bring us back for more next year. Thank you, Wickenburg, for being such a gracious host. Thank you to the 150 volunteers who shared their trucks, quads, cooking and generosity with 140 of the most appreciative riders. Hip, hip, hooray!

Kevin Myers

Liberation & Accumulation - January 6, 2007

I jumped into my car at 5:00 PM to cross Phoenix, east to west, to make the 300 plus mile drive to Warner Springs. It took me more than 90 minutes to get to the western perimeter of the city, and I felt the density of the population around me. It seemed like a good idea a few days earlier when I had agreed to drive through the night to ride a 50 on an exceptional CMK horse, CR Zebra Splash, with Clydea Hastie at the revered Warner Springs Endurance Ride.

I sat in a room for most of the day on Friday with five Mayors from the Phoenix area who were asked to share their 20-year goals for their cities. The Mayors addressed their answers with a surprising lack of creativity or acknowledgment that issues of diversity would become key in accommodating the eight million people that will move in over the next ten years. They talked about adding more of the same instead of evolution.


As the lights of Phoenix grew dim behind me and darkness of the desert set in, I was reminded that this sport - this great escape - takes us further away from the heel-biting reality of life in a big city than anything else on earth. It was an interesting juxtaposition. It provides the ultimate meditation that is borne through the left foot right foot focus of endurance.

The dust storms that brought the highway speeds down to 40 mph were stressful and I began to think it would have been safer to stay home. There were overturned tractor-trailers lying beside the highway. The clouds of blowing dust made driving seem like a game of chicken with the other vehicles on the road. I was relieved to turn south off Highway 10 and start heading up the hairpin curves of the mountain range to the west of the Salton Sea. The change of environment led me to realize the allure of The Ride is as much about liberation of the soul as it is about accumulation of the miles. There is no other motivation greater than liberty itself that would lead me to drive for seven hours into the unknown.

The start of the race was upon us before I blinked. It was 22 degrees - real cold by Arizona standards. There were more than 60 frantic horses at the start, some bucking, some bolting, most riders with that same look in their eyes of fear, excitement and hope. The next 13 miles were a teary-eyed blur of the helter-skelter roller-coaster effect of a fast horse on a fast trail of trees, rocks, sand and single-track furor. What fun. Sue Summers said the trail would be technical: now Clydea and I knew exactly what she meant, and we had fun with that notion for the rest of the day.

Whoosh. Before we knew it, we were at the first vet check. 20 minutes to let the horses settle and replenish fiber and carbs. There were scores of volunteers to time, pulse, scribe and serve. There were buckets of Gatorade, trays of fruit and donuts and hot coffee. There were flakes of grass hay and alfalfa; buckets of grain littered randomly across the vet check and volunteers offering hot mash to horses who were less shy about indulging than the riders. Before I blinked a second time, we were back on our horses and off up the beckoning mountain in front of us. We rode in the lush green of streams that wound their way under appreciative trees and across clusters of rock that bound it all together. It was trail that led us up to the second vet check along hairpin mountain single-track and views that stay with you and permeate your very being.

Whoosh and we were at vet check two. The horses still felt strong and vetted through without event. The sun's strength was no match for the wind, which kept us cool and the horses eager to eat the bounty laid out on the ground before them. We enjoyed the prosperity of the buffet of cold cuts, cheese and bread for sandwiches. The hour hold ended and we turned around and set off back down the mountain; through winding sandy trails and across rocky outcrops that towered high above our target of the Cheney Ranch below. Dr. Woolley talked about stem cell research and cutting new trail as we wound our way down the hill. All the while, the horses pulled us back to the out check, where Elfta pulsed our horses in and then fixed a shoe on a horse next to us. We drank more hot coffee and laughed about the technical trail and enjoyed the space that the trail had put between the riders.



There were just ten miles left and the horses felt like they were settling in to the rhythm of the day. We cut up under the old growth trees and up along the rolling prairie that just rolled eastwards and on beside cows and hikers. Six miles later, we came upon a trail stand of apples and cantaloupe and water and Gatorade and more smiling helping hands. The horses bobbed in the water tank for apples.

Four or so more miles down across the prairie and we were home free with plenty of horse left and the addictive euphoria that you only get at the end of the ride. Fifty miles richer and alive, really alive.

That night in the lodge while the fireplace roared hot springs flowed, we filled our bellies with cuts of beef au jus and pork and baked tomatoes with green beans and creamed potatoes. Thank-you Terry Woolley Howe and your army of friends and helpers! What a ride, what a glorious ride.