2009 Bandit Springs Day 2

Sunday July 12 2009
I was up to watch the 50-milers take off down the trail at 6 AM, and the 30 milers at 7 AM, followed by the BC judging for the 100-miler. Gabrielle Mann and Big Easy, Jennifer Neihaus and MC Gallantly, and Michelle Roush's horse PR Tallymark showed for BC. Michelle was riding another horse in today's 50, so her friend showed Tallymark.

Afterwards, I was visiting fellow Idahoasters Nance and Bruce Worman in their horse trailer out in the suburbs of packed ridecamp - their trailer and my tent were on the far end of the meadow. Nance and her horse Big Sky Quinn finished the 80 miler last night.

While sipping our Starbucks coffee, a woman came up to the trailer out of breath saying something about, "There's a horse in a manger, Bruce can you come? Bring all your tools!" ? We weren't quite sure what she meant, and didn't think much of it, but Bruce said, "OK, sure," and off they went.

After another leisurely cup of coffee, Nance and I walked to downtown ridecamp where the awards meeting was going to be held. There seemed to be a lot of horse trailers in the single lane road through camp, and I started to notice that they were all parked, motors turned off, and the line started behind a 2-horse trailer where a lot of people were crowded around. At the same time the question of whatever could that lady have meant by, a "horse stuck in a manger" popped in my head, and it dawned on me that everything was related. I looked closer at the first trailer and couldn't believe what I thought I saw - the hind end of a horse - looking very shortened in the 2-horse trailer. A yet closer look revealed the front end of the horse was indeed in the manger and wrapped around the dividing pole. When somebody says "A horse is in a manger," that's what they mean!

I couldn't watch anymore. It had already been discovered that nobody had a Sawzall, and many people had scrambled around for whatever tools they could find, and put their brains together as to how to get this horse out of her predicament. She had apparently reared up in the trailer on their way out of camp, gotten her front feet up on the manger which had collapsed, and now her front end was stuck in there, no way to get herself out. She'd been in there 45 minutes by the time Nance and I arrived.

Dr Robert Washington tranquilized the mare more than once while he and Dennis Tribby and Bruce Worman and others worked on breaking the trailer apart, with sledgehammer and hacksaw, and a tow cable attached to the center divider bar of the trailer.

I'd hung way back - couldn't bear to watch - when Nance came up and said "You should get pictures of this!" I just couldn't do it, so I sent her up there with my camera. In the end, another half hour later, everything had turned out fine (I should have had faith in everybody); the manger was carefully and successfully pulled apart enough to step the mare's front end out from the manger, and she was carefully backed out of the trailer. And best of all, the equation of Trapped Horse + Tight Space resulted in no human getting hurt.

The mare ended up with only a few cuts on a hind stifle, and a deeper cut over her eye... and she got a ride home later in another trailer. It's a happy ending to a lesson we can all learn from: inspect your trailers! For wear and tear, rusted parts, rotted floorboards. And all those other things you won't think of till it's too late.

Meanwhile, there were a couple of rides going on, with another 60 or so horses out on the trails. It was cooler today, reaching only around 80* at the hottest part of the day, and much cooler towards evening. Adam Falke could finally ease up on re-filling water troughs, which he'd been doing constantly since oh, about Thursday, in camp and out on the trails, and at the one out vet-check on the 30-mile loop.

Troy Tribby won the 50; Christopher Wood won the 2-day 100 on his big Arab-Morgan Palomino. One of the finishers in the 50 was Tinker Hart, from Minden, Nevada, who also rode yesterday. "On Friday I thought riding 80 miles on Saturday, and 50 miles on Sunday sounded great. The last 10 miles today, I wasn't so sure."

Dr Chris Kane was a veterinarian yesterday, and a rider today, doing the 50 on her Paso Fino Paint. She took it slow, and one of the drag riders pulling ribbons from the 10-mile loop came in ahead of her. It was getting awfully close to the 6 PM cut-off time for the 50 when Chris finally rode in to a bunch of Turtle cheers. Turns out the ribbon puller had actually pulled some of the ribbons from Chris' trail, so she'd lost her way coming in. Our watches all said 5:59 PM when Chris finally crossed the finish line!

All 23 riders finished the 30 mile ride. Led by Melissa Queen, the first three finishers were Ride and Tiers, doing just the riding but not the tie-ing today. 25 of the 28 starters finished the 50, and PR Tallymark won Best Condition in the 100. A fine conclusion to the day was the big vat of jambalaya that Paul cooked up for everybody to go with the potluck dinner.

If you're looking for an excellent ride with exemplary management, good people you want around if anything bad happens (or if it doesn't), perfect weather, wonderful trails, and (equi) ethnic diversity, Bandit Springs is where you want to come. Bring your Arabian, bring your Tennessee Walker; bring your color breed.

Just bring your horse, and get out on these great trails and ride.

2009 Bandit Springs Day 1

Saturday July 11 2009

At the crack of dawn, 5 AM, the 80's and 100-milers started things off, followed an hour later by the 50's. The first of the 80's and 100's were coming in for their first vet check in camp after their first 20-mile loop when the 30's started at 7 AM. The Ride & Tie'rs started at 7:30 AM and the Trail riders after 7:45 - nearly 150 horses on the trails today, coming and going.

There were a couple of thrills on the first day... a 2-day 100 mile rider was spooked off her horse and broke her collarbone (but she stayed all weekend so her husband could finish - and win - the 2-day 100); a Horse Gone - a Ride N Tie-er's horse got loose when the runner was about to get on him, and he went on down the trail without his rider and runner; and a first time rider on the Trail Ride got dumped off his horse a half-mile from camp... and the horse was gone for 24 hours. The Ride N Tie horse was later retrieved at the Ranger Station, and the missing horse was found by another rider Sunday afternoon, his tack still on, no worse for wear, other than quite thirsty.

The winner of the 30 had her own excitement: on the second loop, Canadian Penny Tanner's Standardbred horse spooked and she lost her balance, and before she could recover her seat, she got whacked by a tree branch. It jerked her neck back and flipped her backwards off her horse. Ira Hickman was one who stopped to help her, and rode in with her. They crossed the finish line together, and it was Penny's horse that pulsed down first for the win. Of the 56 starters in the 30, there was only 1 pull.

The 50 was won by Pat Richardson. In 52nd place, the turtle was Tim Floyd, riding in his first 50. Turtle awards were gold Turtle earrings. Tim said he would give them to his wife. Those were some pretty cute earrings... I'd keep an eye on Tim's earlobes next ride.

12 riders started the 80 miler, and 12 of them finished. Winners were the husband-wife team of Ron Sproat and Carol Giles, from just down the road in Prineville. Another husband and wife team, Lee Pearce and Naomi Preston were 4th and 5th, with Lee and Fire Mt Malabar getting Best Condition.

Four of the seven hundred-mile riders were out to compete for a possible win, and those four are some of the top riders and horses in endurance: Joyce Sousa and her daughter Jennifer Neihaus, Gabrielle Mann, and Michelle Roush. Put the riders' AERC miles together - 43,910 miles - and the horses' records - 14,920 AERC miles, 268 starts with a 94% completion rate, and really, no more needs to be said. These four were always within 15 minutes of each other over the whole course, with Gabrielle and CM Big Easy leading the way.

Gabrielle got Big Easy five years ago when he was 9. His first career was as a racehorse, and when Gabrielle got him, that's all he had on his mind on the endurance trail - racing. It took her a long time to get him to learn to balance himself - get off his forehand and not lean on the bit, canter on both leads; and how to learn to relax, and not have to pass everybody at once. Big Easy knows his job so well now, that he knows which horses are in his race, and which ones to ignore. "The 30-mile horses, or the 50-mile horses, he'll ignore. But when he sees a horse in his distance, he'll focus on it until he gets him!" He's a tough little horse, under 15 hands - "Big horse, little legs," says Gabrielle - and he's one of the kindest ones Gabrielle has known.

They had a 50-mile tuneup in March, winning the Rides of March, before going down to Uruguay and finishing 20th in the 120-km Pan American Championships, and earning a Team Silver medal. June 27th was another win and BC in the 50-mile Chalk Rock ride.

Joyce and LV Integrity were coming off wins in the Owyhee Fandango 100 on May 24, and the Sunriver 100 on June 20. Jennifer and MC Gallantly, after finishing 3rd in the Owyhee Fandango 100 (crossing the line right together with Joyce and Cheryl Dell), did an easy tune-up 50 miler on June 27.

Michelle and PR Tallymark, a standardbred-Arabian cross, last did two days of the Wild West 3-day Pioneer at the end of May, winning and BC'ing one day. Tallymark has 17 BCs over his 53-ride career (that's almost 1 out of every 3 rides, he BCs!)

Gabrielle had a 7 minute lead coming into the next-to-last vet check, with 10 miles to go. She chose, however, to stay extra minutes and let her horse eat more. It was a gamble, leaving camp 2 minutes ahead of Joyce and Jennifer, who took off on the trail at a canter. I don't know which would be more nerve-wracking - having LV Integrity and MC Gallantly breathing down my neck 2 minutes behind me, always looking over my shoulder, or having them 2 minutes ahead of me, and trying to catch them! Michelle was on the trail two minutes behind them.

In the end it was Gabrielle and CM Big Easy who crossed the finish line first, 7 minutes ahead of Joyce and LV Integrity and Jennifer and MC Gallantly, with Michelle and PR Tallymark finishing 7 minutes behind them. None of the riders and horses looked like they'd gone a hundred miles - superior athletes, all of them. Big Easy's ride time for the 100 miles was 11:13.

The other three riders were out to complete the 100... and they did. One of those riders was Dick Root, who rides one of my favorite Pacific Northwest endurance horses, Rocky. A half-mustang, part-something (has to be part draft horse), Rocky is huge - about 17 hands high. Dick, a veterinarian, got Rocky and his mustang mother when Rocky was 4 weeks old. "He had that big ol' head even back then!" Those coarse-headed, big-headed horses remind me of a great Thoroughbred mare I groomed at the racetrack, (many people erringly and unjustly made fun of her looks), so I have a soft spot for them. Rocky's often hard to slow down at the beginning of a ride so Dick uses a strong mechanical hackamore on him, and after the first or second loop, Rocky settles down. Dick has taught Rocky to stretch out and lower himself so that Dick can mount his tall horse easier.

It was Rocky's first 100, and they finished the last ten mile loop in the dark. "Physically he was fine," Dick said. "Mentally, it was harder on him. He's a tough horse though." I petted Rocky's big ol' head the morning after his ride.

Melissa and Becky Fielder rode their last two 10-mile loops in the dark, and finished after midnight, which made 7 for 7 completions in the 100.

2009 Bandit Springs Cultural Endurance

Friday July 10 2009

If you want to experience the true flavor of multi-ethnic endurance riding, Bandit Springs in central Oregon is where you go.

You've got your Equi-Ethnic Majority: the Arabians. Then you've got your Equi-Ethnic Minorities, a large percentage of which are 'Gaiters' - your Tennessee Walkers, Paso Finos, Peruvian Pasos, Missouri Foxtrotters; there are also minority Mustangs, Quarter horses, Morgans, Thoroughbreds, Irish Thoroughbreds, Standardbreds, Rocky Mountain horses, and the colored Appaloosas and Paints and Palominos; and there's the half-breds and unknown-breds that are a mix of all kinds of breeds. And they pretty much all get along. (The one thing I didn't see was a mule, but I bet they'll come out of the closet soon!) I enjoyed trying to guess breeds, then asking the rider if I was correct.

Then you have your wide range of people: Exclusively Gaiter riders and non-Gaiters (a friendly rivalry there); first time riders and veterans with 20,000 miles under their fanny packs; 10-year-olds to 72-year-olds; international competitors to weekend fun riders. You'll see huge motorhomes pulling 3-horse trailers, 5-horse trailers with living quarters, and the basic old-truck-and-2-horse-trailer-and-tent.

Not only that, you have your choice of about a dozen rides over two days: a 10-mile trail ride, 30 miles, 50 miles, 80 miles, or a 100 miles (or a 2-day 100), and the 50-mile Region IV AHA Championship. If you're crazy, you can ride a 100 on day 1 and a 50 on day 2. If you're REALLY crazy, like nearly a dozen people were, you can do a Ride & Tie, either 10, 30, 50, 80, or 100 miles of it!

If you don't want to ride, you can crew, or sit around getting massaged, either by LMT Sharon Adena for humans (many of whom slithered like jelly afterwards) or by LMT Randy Reinhart for horses. You can go shopping at Healthy as a Horse, or Becca Clark's Firebird Silverworks after she's finished riding (the Raven found a beautiful silver Raven pin he had to have!), or you can pig out at Becky Mortensen's Chuckwagon all day. (So many people did, that she ran out of food!)

And somehow, we all fit together. My non-horsie friend came to watch on Saturday and perceptively observed: "This endurance riding is a Culture all its own!"

The Bandit Springs ride was put on again by Jannelle Wilde and her husband Adam Falke and a host of other worker bees and riders, including Gary Pegg the "Trail Diva" or "Bonsai Man". Janelle and Adam live 5 hours away, and they all arrive about a week early and get to work setting up, clearing and marking trails.

In the Ochoco National Forest on the east side of the Cascades in Ponderosa pine and fir forests, basecamp is in a large, knee-high-grass-meadow - much to the horses' delight - at 4700'. On the trails you might see wild horses, deer, elk, or antelope. You might get really lucky (or unlucky, depending on your point of view) and see a black bear or cougar, two of the elusive inhabitants of the Ochoco National Forest. You might see remains of 9500-year-old Native American camp lodges or 3000-year-old winter villages, or traces - such as tree blazes - of early pioneers, who traversed the Meek Wagon trail and Huntington Road in the 1840's and 1850's.

And if you're really really lucky, you might discover the gold that bandits left hidden in the hills in 1863, along with their six horses. The bones and tack of the horses were found by the log they were tied to - but the gold was not... or so the story goes.

The opinion of the mostly single-track trails through the forest was pretty unanimous: though there were "some rocks", and places were a bit technical, over all, the trails were great, "nothing to complain about!" Temperatures were in the mid-40's at night, and didn't quite reach 90* during the day.

Last year's ride was a 1-day ride and had over 120 riders. This year's was a 2-day ride and had over 120 riders on day 1, and a large number again on day 2. It was my second year to cover the ride, and my second year NOT riding it... If I heard one more, "The trails were perfect!" "It's so beautiful out there!" "You should ride it!" I was going to rip the next person off their horse and gallop right on out there.

So, hang tightly onto your reins and consider carefully what you say as you ride by me!

Howl at the Moon

Monday July 6 2009

We've been riding in the evenings, to avoid the heat. This evening, Steph said, "If we wait till 8:00, we'll see the moonrise at 8:30." Sounded great!

We saddled up Rhett and Mac and Dudley and struck out to the east.

We rode, ambling along at mostly a walk and trot, trying to time it just right to see the moon rise up from the horizon in front of us. The skies were clear, the sun sank behind the Owyhees behind us leaving an orange glow in its wake...

but the moon did not come up.

As the time ticked by and we rode ever eastward, we surmised why.

"Maybe it's not coming up tonight."

"Maybe it's coming up in the west instead."

"We won't see it - It's like a layer in photoshop that somebody turned off."

"Maybe that was 8:30 in another time zone."

"Maybe it was 8:30 on July 6 in another year."

"Where IS the moon??"

Steph started howling.

The moon did not come up.

Soon we would be turning to the north, then west, so we wouldn't see the moonrise in front of us - the whole point of this excursion.

The horses helped out, their walks becoming slower and slower as they all started stopping for bites of rice grass. (Mac found the Mother Lode! It was up to his chest and looked like a wedding bouquet!) They stopped, they ate; we stared at the eastern horizon. I really started scanning the horizon in all directions... just in case.

Still the moon did not come up.

Our trail through the Badlands turned us to the north. It briefly jogged back to the east as we crested a little rise, and, perfect timing: "There it is!"

The Full Moon. (It was 9:30.)

We stopped to watch it, while the horses grazed away. You could actually see the moon creeping up above the earth.

It followed us over our right shoulders, then as our trail turned back west towards home, it rose higher behind us, glowing orange as it climbed the layers above the horizon.

Twilight darkened our trails, silent but for the hoofbeats of our sure-footed horses. My white horse was the only sure clear thing our human eyes could see.

Coming up the last hill, the horses in front of me were silhouettes framed against the last of the light in the western sky. The moon was high enough now to cast light shadows on the ground.

We heard coyotes on the last stretch, howling at the moon.

Look to the Trees

July 3 2009

When the last piece of hay is consumed, when the last blade of grass is no more, I lifteth up mine eyes and looketh up to the trees from whence cometh my sustenance. - The Book of Dudley, Ch 5: V 1

I starve; therefore I reach.



And reach



I study.


I try again.




And yet I reach.


I rethink my position.


I aim.




I get a bead on it.


I concentrate.


I reeeeeeeaaaaaaaaach.


I touch!


I succeed; therefore I eat!

Camouflage

Friday July 3 2009

Last Saturday, Ridecamp here was half full of rigs and people and horses and dogs for the Almosta Bennett Hills endurance ride. I was roaming about with my camera on the four-wheeler when I saw a killdeer run along the ground.

I looked to where she was running away from, and moved in that direction, and mama killdeer went lame, doing the broken wing display, trying to draw me toward her and away from... her nest with 4 eggs.



Look a little closer at the top photo, in the center: four kildeer eggs. It took me a while to locate them, being well camouflaged in the rocks and gravel, sticks and grass; and m
eanwhile, mama killdeer was flopping and fluttering away, an injured bird in great distress.







To appease her, I backed away from the nest.

Which happened to be not 10 feet from a big horse trailer that had just missed it when it drove in and parked - rather an inconvenient location! But then, how could nesting in the open on the ground anywhere be convenient? It must work, because that's what they do, and there sure are a lot of killdeer around here. (A couple years ago, we discovered a killdeer nest right by our busy finish line - those killdeer went on to hatch and fledge).

I got a couple of fencing posts and roped off 2 sides of the nest so horses and rigs would keep clear. Horses and riders and dogs went about their business all weekend; mama killdeer went about her business, sitting on her nest.

In their courtship, the male killdeer will make loud calls and sham nest-scraping movements. The male builds the nest. (This one was merely a little scraped out depression, though the placement among the camouflage decor was great.) The male and female will share nest duties... but I have yet to see two birds around this nest - you'd think I'd see two of them at least once. Killdeer eat mostly insects, and with all the dang flies around here, mama probably doesn't even have to leave her nest to eat!

When the chicks hatch, they will be downy, open-eyed, mobile at birth, and will find their own food while following their parents. They should fledge in 25 days - fly competently - so hopefully I'll catch the hatch and get to keep an eye on the babies a while.

I rode Stormy close to her today (the killdeer will do the distress show for humans and dogs, I've noticed, but not for horses), a week later, and she's still sitting patiently on her eggs. She didn't bat a bird's eyelash at us.

Shifting Priorities (Mongol Derby)

Wednesday July 1 2009

I see with a lot of pressure from horse people worldwide, the Adventurists putting on this Mongol Derby (who are not an equine tour company, and have apparently never put on a horse event in a first world country, much less a third world country), have suddenly proclaimed horse welfare "firmly" at the top of their agenda.

Now, instead of "Essentially once the starter gun goes off you are on your own", and instead of 2 jeeps "following the race from a distance" there is now a "fleet of back up jeeps," or a "fleet of jeeps," or the event is supported by five off-road vehicles running alongside the riders (um, which five riders?) and 2 standby 4x4 vehicles.

Now instead of having no established route to follow, and the riders being on their own: "Luck? Judgement? Ask a passing herder? Ride in concentric circles for a week? Divination... You will be given a map before the start with the locations of each Urtuu and the rest is down to you," there is an "established route" to follow, or a "route marked out by the horse stations."

Now, instead of the riders "tackling the challenge of semi-wild horses and surviving alone in the wild steppes of Mongolia", and "It's dangerous, it's unsupported and you could die," now the "safety and welfare of the horses and riders on the Mongol Derby is of paramount importance to us as organisers. With a network of first class professionals, both veterinary and medical, the Mongol Derby's support network is exemplary; before, during and after the race." Now, the "welfare of the horse is guarded and monitored at all times" (I'm a little vague on the math here... 26 riders and horses - or 600 horses, if you want to count all of them - spread out over days or weeks and how many kilometers, with the 5 off-road vehicles following the 5 riders.)

Most enlightening and comforting, now there is also an "extensive horse welfare program and emergency back up system" in place. There's a "fantastic team of equine experts and veterinarians", or "respected British and Mongolian equine experts," or "a network of Mongolian vets". (Mongolia must have a lot of vets, no?) An unnamed British equine vet "with 32 years of experience" will follow the Derby in one of our "fleet of back up jeeps" and the Mongolian vets will have with them "high quality veterinary medicines."

Now instead of: "They're going to give us GPS locations to the wells, where we'll be able to get water, and they don't guarantee that the wells will have water" (apparently said by a contestant - but surely this can not be a real quote!), a recent revision was made "to increase the number of water sources" (um... new wells dug?) that have been clearly plotted for horses and riders, or, an "extensive list of confirmed water sources." Now the provision of water is a prime deciding factor in the route for the horses. Now, "The route will under no circumstances be taken through any area without adequate water provision and has been designed with this primarily in mind."

There still is that weight thing, though. Horses can safely carry up to 20% of their body weight. Mules can carry 25% safely. 95 kg, or 209 pounds, (the weight limit of the riders plus equipment and personal things), is 20% of a 454 kg, or 1000 pound animal. I haven't seen a 14-hand pony yet that weighs anywhere close to 1000 pounds.

Karen C in her blog entry today raised some valid points, besides wondering what really happens to the horses after they are raced. Namely, who is supplying batteries for the GPS units? My GPS only goes 11 hours without a charge (or plug in, which you won't have at the Urtuus in Mongolia). What about the emergency beacons? They will need fresh batteries too. Keeping the GPS's and emergency beacons functional every day would seem rather important since they are paramount to horse and rider safety, and riders will be limited on the weight they can carry. Will the Mongol Derby organisation provide enough batteries for all 26 riders every day at each Urtuu?

All of this new info is from the June 30th press release and the newly released Mongol Derby Horse Welfare and Race Logistics Information from the Adventurists.

It all looks great. After all, IT'S ALL WRITTEN ON PAPER, SO IT'S TRUE.

Right? (Although, which written word is true: those before the press release, or those in the press release?). Now we can all stop worrying and start kvetching about something else.

(An aside, TOTALLY unrelated to this event. I do not believe everything my government and governmental officials have put in writing, or told me, the last decade. Some of it has indeed proved to be false. And now, back to the Mongol Derby.)

Now, aside from the weight factor, I commend the Adventurists organization for seriously addressing valid concerns from serious horse people around the world, and from CLEARLY disassociating themselves from endurance riding or racing. ("The Mongol Derby is not an endurance race for the horses...")

However, I remain skeptical of all of their written declarations.

Since only the riders and Adventurists organization will be there in Mongolia during the Mongol Derby, the world won't really know if all or any of these written declarations will come to pass, will they?

So, how about this: if the Adventurists are dead set (no pun intended) on their wild and crazy Mongolian Adventure, and they are dead serious (no pun intended) on horse safety being at the forefront of this entire adventure, why don't they also bring along a few independent expert horsemen to independently audit the event?

How about a horse expert (who really does ride horses, a lot) from the Adventurists organization (surely there is one), a rider from the Long Riders' Guild, and a third horse riding expert that both agree upon? They can ride in the fleet of jeeps following the riders. That way there can be no question that the WRITTEN WORD is actually what goes down. Riders will still have their uninhibited wild and crazy adventure, horses will indeed be taken care of, the horse world will be put at ease, and Tom Morgan will be absolutely vindicated

How about it, Tom??