'Toons: Rabbit Quest Art

Wednesday January 26 2011











The Masterpiece!


The footwork behind the scenes:


Created by the feet of Owyhee


(No rabbits were harmed in the creation of this Owyhee masterpiece)

2011 Fire Mountain

Tuesday January 25 2011

If you want to feel a little like a wimp, ride for 50 miles beside a guy in shorts and tank top when you've got 4 layers on and your hands are numb. However, he will wear extra clothing once in a while: "I'm getting older and sometimes get cold at rides so I have to wear gloves." Once in a while he might wear a sweatshirt, and there is one photo known to exist of him wearing actual jeans on a horse, though none of us have ever seen this extraoardinary phenomenon in person.

If you want to feel humbled, ride 50 miles beside one who has ridden 50,000 AERC miles. (He's second on the high mileage list.)


Riding with Hall of Fame endurance rider Dave Rabe is a bit humbling, but it's also enjoyable. It's also nice to watch his handsome white gelding move down the trail. Dave and 10-year-old White Cloud have racked up over 4500 miles together, in just 3 seasons of endurance riding. "He's a nice horse. He's been very sound."

But it wasn't always easy riding White Cloud. The horse had been dropped off at an animal sanctuary 4 years ago, and when the woman there tried riding him, he dumped her. She gave the horse to Dave. It took Dave a few times of getting run away with and dumped before he figured White Cloud out. It's usually when he mounts White Cloud that he bolts and runs. "Last time he dumped me at a ride was Death Valley over a year ago...." Amazing what wet saddle blankets can do for a horse that nobody else could ride, although White Cloud still has that bolting trigger inside him.

Dave is known for riding difficult horses and turning them into good competitors. Dave made the AERC Hall of Fame in 2009, and when accepting his award, he said, "I suppose I really like a horse that bucks and runs away with me. That’s why people give me their horses.” Dave is also known for going out of his way to help at rides. He'll arrive at a ride a few days early to mark trail, and he'll stay afterward to unmark trail. If you need any help applying easyboot glue-ons or gloves, or fixing your tack, or repairing your truck or trailer, he'll do that before a ride, or during a ride when most of the rest of us are sitting down to eat lunch.


Gretchen and I rode her two horses Spice and Kav with Dave and White Cloud on the 32nd annual Fire Mountain ride. We survived attack jackrabbits (just ask Kav and White Cloud about those), and

a jeep with a dubious driver in Nazi Canyon. (For some reason, the driver had decided to attempt to drive over a 4 foot high boulder. It didn't work.)


The Fire Mountain ride was almost called off the week before due to low entries. When 38 signed up, the ride was declared on; ultimately about 75 riders took off into the desert sunrise on Saturday morning, the boulders and cholla glowing golden and our long shadows stretching toward the pink Sierra Nevada mountains.


The Farthest Traveler Award went to Amada Rayner from West Australia. She and her husband Jared were coming to the US on vacation and she wondered if she might fit in an endurance ride. Finding the Fire Mountain ride on the schedule, she contacted ride manager Sue Benson, who put her in touch with local Jackie Bumgardner, who offered her home-bred Fire Mt Odyssey to ride. Amanda was all smiles during and after the ride - Amanda's first US endurance ride and completion. Amanda is not the first foreigner to be carried to a finish by Fire Mt Odyssey. The 14-year-old mare carried Japanese ride Hiromi KItake to a Tevis finish in 2007.


Often this ride is done in near-gale force winds, but Saturday had only the slightest pleasant breeze with temperatures in the mid-70's - unless you hit that long climb on Loop 3 around 2 PM. Then you were wishing for some of the "W" word. Not a single puff of air disturbed the sun beating down on our winter-coated horses on that sheltered climb. By the time we got to the top of the hill, the horses thought they'd died and crawled through Death Valley in the middle of summer. The water trough was almost empty at the bottom of the hill, but since we could see Mike Montgomery coming with a refill in the water truck, we used the rest of it in the tank to douse our hot horses. We let them rest and eat hay a while to recover there; and at the same time, a nice cloud cover took over the sky, enough to make me pull my sleeves down and for Dave Rabe to put his tank top back on his bare back (though he said "It's so I don't sunburn.")


The Fire Mountain ride isn't an easy one - we finished in about 8 hours, and we had moved along all day. We measured exactly 50 miles on our GPS, and each loop had some fair climbing up into the Rademacher hills, and our horses all had minimal winter clips. But all the loops had great footing, awesome views - and great company.


Next time you're doing a ride out West, try tagging along with a Hall of Famer. You might feel a little insignificant... but if Dave Rabe's the Hall of Famer, you'll be glad you did.

Farewell: Sierra Fadrazal +/

Monday January 24 2011

There's one less set of hoofprints on the endurance trails.

Jackie Bumgardner's horse Sierra Fadrazal+/ , aka Ross, was put down Friday at home in Ridgecrest, California at 33 years of age. Jackie bought him as a youngster shortly after buying his sire Sierra Fadwah (who lived to 31 years of age); and Ross and Jackie spent more than 20 years on the endurance trails together.

He carried 24 different riders over his career, and was always eager to go down the trail. His ears would prick forward, his head would go up in the air and his long legs would fly into overdrive as he ate up the miles.

Never lame, his record speaks volumes: 8430 AERC miles, 145 starts and 145 finishes, 14 hundred mile finishes, including 4 consecutive Tevis buckles (1985-6-7-8) and three straight Virginia City buckles (1985-6-7), 9 Best Condition awards.

He completed his last 50 mile ride in 2002, but he continued to carry riders on LDs until his last one in 2005 on his home summer turf of Bridgeport, California in Jackie's Eastern High Sierra Classic ride. After that, he continued his work as 'Uncle Ross', breaking new horses to the trails by ponying them. Most memorably, he was Zayante's best friend since 1995 - the two of them were inseparable for 16 years.

I saw Ross the week before he died. We'd spent a lot of training miles together, summers in Bridgeport, winters in Ridgecrest. Ross stopped eating to come up to me. He sniffed and sniffed my hands, Hi, my old friend, and he stood there while I scratched his back and sides, and he lifted his neck so I could scratch beneath it.

He left for the next world on Friday.

Goodbye, my Old Friend.

Sweat

Wednesday January 19 2011

If you want a good workout in the Ridgecrest desert for your endurance horses, you haul to Brady's. The trails are no-nonsense, as they go right up and into the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas.

If you do the short loop, your horse has a mile-long climb up to the water pipeline road (water for Los Angeles that comes from Owens Valley), which gets steeper toward the end. He gets a little breather before he has another mile-long hard climb up, before descending back to the valley. (If you do the long version, he has the mile climb, then a couple of miles of flat road,

then a 1 1/2 mile very steep climb up before descending a steep trail down to this second mile-long climb.) We did the short loop today.


The views of the Ridgecrest basin get broader as you climb, and the views of the Sierras grow even as you ascend towards them.


With their wooly coats, Kav and Spice and Raffiq were coated with sweat. As were we three girls. And that was just at a walk. Even when it was a mild 71*. If your horse is really really fit, as in Tevis-fit, he might trot some of these trails; but today, with the horses' winter coats, they didn't need to trot to get the full-on super workout.

When your horse's eyebrows are sweating, you know they are working hard. It should be 10* cooler for next weekend's Fire Mountain ride, and we'll shave some of their thick hair off.


If you can't appreciate what your endurance horses willingly do, you probably shouldn't be riding them. I could feel every muscle working beneath me as Kav dug his toes in the sand in his efforts to get to the top of these little mountains. I heard his huffing and puffing, and I rubbed his sweaty neck. And he was done with one hill, I pointed him toward the next, and up he went.

It was a good day's work on our amazing mounts.

Zenyatta - They Got It Right This Time!

Tuesday January 18 2011

Horse racing got it right this time!

Trails A Fire

Monday January 17 2011

Today Gretchen and I rode her two horses on one of the loops of next weekend's Fire Mountain endurance ride.

The 50 and 30 mile rides will loop up above Ridgecrest California into the Rademacher Hills, with views of the Sierra Nevada mountains to the west, the Argus range to the northeast, and the Panamint Mountains of Death Valley to the east.


I'll name the 14-mile loop that we did the "Pontiac Loop" because we passed an old rusted Pontiac (or something of the sort - I don't have an eye for cars), or should I say, Kav didn't want to pass the old rusted Pontiac beside the trail. It was even scarier than that killer jackrabbit that attacked us.

On the trail you'll likely see some of the 40-odd old gold-mine pits and some scattered 'historical trash' from the mining days. It's a bit early for the burrowing owls to start nesting, but you'll pass some of their nest holes, and you'll surely see some desert Ravens flying about checking you and your horse out. And jackrabbits. Plenty of jackrabbits.


It was hot today (about 71 degrees!) and we girls and the two horses sweated up a storm. It should be ten degrees cooler Saturday, and the trails are in fantastic condition - very little rock (no pads needed), mostly smooth and soft single and two-tracks, a bit of sand but nothing too deep.

The Fire Mountain ride was almost cancelled before the weekend as the number of entries hadn't reached 40. The ride is put on by the local Valley Riders as a fundraiser. The funds don't add up when you lose money putting on a ride. Years past, ride management was turning riders away, but entries are way down this year, as they are in many rides. But by Friday, 38 had signed up, so they gave the Fire Mountain ride the green light.


The Ridgecrest area of the Mojave Desert claims to have sunshine 350 days a year. They already got their rain and snow out of the way, so it should be sunny from now till December 31st.

The cooler temperature and sunny day will make for some sweet riding on Saturday.

These Old Trails

Sunday January 16 2011


The skies glow as evening comes to the Mojave Desert of Ridgecrest, California.


The snow geese hit the skies by the hundreds, honking and squawking, flying in Vs to find the best spots in the desert to sleep, after dining on the grass that's sprung up from the winter rains.


As morning light reaches the snow on the Sierra Nevada peaks, we haul out to the Garlock road and get dropped off,


and ride up and over Laurel Mountain (with the big golf ball radar station on top), 15 miles back home.


I'm riding Gretchen's horse Kav, who I'll ride in next weekend's 50-mile Fire Mountain ride.


Gretchen's on her horse Spice, and Wendy (from Cool, CA) is riding her handsome young gelding. We make our way up the shoulders of Laurel Mountain, the horses working up a sweat in their long wooly coats, even as we pass a few remnants of ice and snow along the trail.


We all cool down on the top, before we start winding back down off the hills, and we cross the highway and join my old stomping grounds of trails that I once named. Here is Maggie's Trail, where I used to gallop a horse named Maggie. We cross Fadwah's Trail and Ross' Trail (both named after 2 of Jackie's old endurance horse). We pass Stormy Summit North, East, and West, where my retired Thoroughbred racehorse Stormy learned how to go out on the desert trails by himself.



It's been a month since I've been in the saddle, and my muscles are feeling it, but it's great to be back on a horse with friends on old familiar trails.