He Scares the Hell Out Of Me! - Lee Pearce and Fire Mt Malabar

Thursday June 27 2013

The horse sounded like a good prospect for her new-to-endurance-riding husband Lee Pearce: 5-year-old Arabian gelding, sound, winner on the racetrack, a $2500 price tag; and Naomi Preston knew the owner and trainer Jim Bumgardner. The horse was by Sierra Fadwah +/ : the first stallion to reach 7000 endurance miles, the Jim Jones Award winner in 1983, Reserve National Middleweight Champion in 1988, and 1992 AERC Hall of Fame. What could be wrong with this endurance candidate?

Naomi and Lee loaded up their trailer and drove non-stop from Idaho to the Bay Area in California, to have a look at this Fire Mt Malabar. "It takes FOREVER to get to California," Lee emphasized.

Expecting to see a big strong Arabian ready to start on the endurance trail, since he'd been racing and winning on the racetrack, Lee and Naomi both were in for a surprise when they laid eyes on Malabar and his pasture cohort, full brother Fire Mt Legacy. "Oh my God," they both thought, "what have we gotten ourselves into!"

Lee was a heavyweight rider, looking for a burly horse to carry his weight over thousands of miles of trail, but neither horse looked like the typical "heavyweight horse".

In slight consternation, Naomi said, "Uh - we really need to see him move!" The exercise rider got on Malabar first and warmed him up. The horse definitely looked better moving around under saddle. Lee asked to climb aboard and ride him.

And that was it. "As soon as I got on Malabar, I knew I wanted him. He was really powerful, and smooth… I'd never felt anything so powerful before." Lee had been riding many miles on a favorite brawny mustang named Terminator, "but that horse had nothing of the power and elegance of Malabar. I knew this one had stamina and power."

Lee wanted Malabar, despite the fact that the horse took off running with him, aiming for an irrigation ditch, fighting with Lee who was desperately to wrestle him down to a whoa before he flew over the ditch. "Typical Malabar!" Lee laughed.

Lee and Naomi loaded up both Malabar and Legacy, and brought them home to the northwest.


That was 2004, but Lee and Naomi were in no rush to get Malabar on the endurance trails. "We built him up for 2 years, even though he was off the track and in shape, because he'd be carrying a heavyweight rider, and he needed to strengthen his muscles and tendons," Lee said.

Lee and Malabar's first endurance ride in March of 2006, was at Home on the Range, in Washington state, with pasture-mate Karlady, also starting her first endurance ride. In those days, Home on the Range was a big ride, with over 160 riders in all distances. "We finished about 80th," Lee said, "although the first half of the ride we were in the top 25! Malabar thought he was in a big horse race. He was just an idiot!"

Eagle Extreme in Idaho in April was Malabar's next 50 mile ride. One might have thought the horse would have settled down a bit. Nope. "He wasn't much better. He was wanting to go fast, and instead of fighting him, I thought I'd let him go a little bit - WRONG! He got sore on those hills (Eagle Extreme is a very hilly ride) and was pulled for lameness." That was Malabar's last ride of the season; and instead, Lee concentrated on legging him up more.


It paid off during the 2007 endurance season, where Lee rode a rested and toughened Malabar 775 miles. They completed 14 of 15 rides, including Malabar's first 100 mile rides, (at Sunriver in Oregon and the AERC National Championship in Idaho), with 4 Top Ten finishes.

In 2008, Lee started riding JAC Mr Turner as his primary endurance horse. He rode Malabar as his backup endurance horse to 'only' 8 starts and finishes (and one 100-mile ride), but this was the season the duo picked up the first two of their Best Condition awards.

Turner was slightly injured by a pasture-mate at the end of 2008, so Malabar became Lee's primary mount again in 2009. An outstanding record of 15 starts/completions and 8 Best Condition awards launched Lee and Malabar to 3rd place in the 2009 national Best Condition standings.

And Malabar has just gotten better with age: 2010 (11 years old) - 11 completions in 12 starts, 6 more Best Condition awards, and 3rd place National Best Condition; and 2011 - 16 completions, 12 more BC awards, and 1st place National Best Condition.

One might expect that with all those miles under his girth, Malabar might be an easy ride. Not so! says Naomi.

In 2011, at the 2-day Bandit Springs ride in Oregon, Lee planned to ride the first day on Malabar, but opted out because of a bad knee. Naomi thought she'd ride Malabar on the second day of the ride. "I should have ridden him on the 80, but I weenied out and did the 50. The Blakeleys (a northwest endurance riding family) took off fast at the start, and Malabar is like 'I'm going with them!' and I'm trying to hold him back - and he goes WACKO when you try to fight with him!" Naomi demonstrates a battle with imaginary reins attached to an imaginary wacko horse. "He wouldn't buddy up with anybody, he was having NONE of it.


"And after a couple of miles, I just got off, and led him back to Ridecamp. I could not control him - he was so - OH MY GOD!"

Lee confirmed, "Yea, he was a nutcase."

"I was done!" Naomi exclaimed. "I didn't want to die that day!"

And it's not that Lee and Naomi are inexperienced riders who can't handle a rogue horse. Lee's a strong heavyweight rider, and Naomi has over 10,000 endurance miles, and rode international competitor, National Champion, and AERC Hall of Fame horse Mustang Lady.

The couple took Malabar and Karlady to a Peggy Cummings clinic one weekend. Cummings is a "consummate master horsewoman" who teaches Connected Riding.

"I thought I'd bring Malabar," Lee said, "because I thought he could use some help.

"In the clinic, Malabar's going around with his head up in the air, and Peggy's telling me all this stuff, and it's not working, so I said, somewhat exasperated, 'Peggy, why don't you hop on this horse, and just tell me what you think of him.'

"Peggy couldn't do a damn thing with him!" Lee laughs, with obvious fondness for his obstinate horse. "She said 'This is the most difficult horse I've ever been on!'"

One might also expect that with all those heavyweight miles and all those awards in the saddle together, that Malabar would be Lee's favorite horse. "Yes... Well... unwillingly! As far as riding, he's a rough-riding horse, he's hard-headed, strong, opinionated. He has no manners, and he scares the hell out of me!" How? "By going too fast!"

Asked if Malabar spooks: "Oh yea, ALL the time! I should've come off him many times, but it wasn't till 2011 he finally got me off the first time."


Lee is grudgingly willing to admit Malabar is his favorite horse, and to forgive him for his feistiness because of his consistently outstanding performances. The 14-year-old gelding currently owns 31 Best Condition awards (8th on the all-time Best Condition list, one of only 2 actively competing endurance horses). With 5 50-mile completions and 3 Best Condition awards so far this year, Fire Mt Malabar is 50 miles short of 4000 career endurance miles.

If age, experience, and the last few years are any indication, Lee and Fire Mt Malabar have many more miles and Best Condition awards, ahead of them.

A Northwest Endurance TTeam

Saturday June 15 2013

Endurance riders in the Northwest region might be familiar with the sight of husband and wife team Naomi Preston and Lee Pearce trotting the trails, or they might be familiar with Lee Pearce getting up at the awards dinner to receive yet another Best Condition award.

You might recognize their names from the AERC Bob & Julie Suhr Husband & Wife Team Award (5th in 2011, 4th in 2010, 2nd in 2009, 5th in 2008), or Lee's National Best Condition Awards (1st in 2011, 3rd in 2010 and 2009, 5th in 2008).

But the couple also combine their diverse talents in a unique clinic offered at their Elkhorn Mountain Ranch outside of Baker City, Oregon.

Naomi has been a TTEAM practitioner since 1990. Known as the Tellington-Ttouch Method, TTEAM is a specialized approach to the care and training of horses (and other animals), using heart and hands to develop trust and create a harmonious relationship that changes unwanted behavior and improves body awareness and coordination. The Tellington Method involves gentle body work using fingers and hands with varied methods of pressure in circular, sliding and lifting movements.

Along with body wrapping - which maintains a constant connection with the horse's entire body, increasing sensory awareness and providing a constant, calming effect - TTEAM is used to improve a horse's self-carriage and help engage its hindquarters, lower the head and lift the back, increase range of motion and stride length, improve coordination and balance, lateral flexion and confidence, discover sore or sensitive areas, help speed recovery from injuries, and overcome fear or resistance.

Naomi discovered the effectiveness of this method when she used it - or tried to use it - on her AERC Hall of Fame mare, Mustang Lady. They'd completed one day at a multi day ride near Las Vegas in February of 1989, when Lady became sore afterwards because of all the deep sand on the trail that she wasn't used to.

"I'd recently been to a conference where Linda Tellington-Jones was speaking, and I remembered some of the things she talked about and demonstrated," Naomi related. "I didn't know what I was doing on Lady, but I tried to copy what I'd seen Linda doing."

It worked - Mustang Lady was sound enough to start and complete the next day's 50 mile ride. From then on, Naomi was a believer, and she started attending TTEAM clinics. She became a certified TTEAM practitioner in 1990, and has since incorporated it into her endurance riding and conditioning.

Naomi's husband Lee, a Certified Natural Balance Farrier, has also found the TTEAM techniques useful in his shoeing and trimming practice. Sometimes he'll apply a body wrap to the horses he works on, and he'll use TTouch methods to calm them down; and he'll use leg exercises to encourage the horses to pick and hold up their feet with little resistance. You can see the effect of Lee's calm energy and hands-on touches when horses put their heads in his chest and start to close their eyes.


Naomi and Lee use the TTEAM exercises as part of their pre-endurance ride warm ups, to get their horses more relaxed and supple. During the vet checks, they often use TTEAM techniques to help relax their horses, stimulate their appetites, and increase blood circulation.

After rides, they use TTEAM to find sore spots from the rides, and to initiate the horses' recuperation from the rides.

In addition to practicing TTEAMwork on their own performance horses, Naomi holds private TTEAM clinics, like the recent one in June hosted at their Elkhorn Mountain Ranch near Baker City, Idaho, in June. Student devotees from Chile, Netherlands, Scotland, Wyoming, Oregon, and Idaho attended.


Liz came to continue to learn "to have a better relationship and rapport with my horses that is no-stress," she said. "TTouch is a great way to communicate with my horse because it's based on giving the horse credit for having a brain, and thinking, rather than imposing some kind of agenda, and I find it really effective."

Naomi first demonstrated, then coached students on various horses in such TTouch techniques. Body wraps were applied to each horse, while different areas were practiced on: body work, ear work (used either to stimulate, or calm a horse), tail work (bending and stretching), mouth work, and leg exercises (range of motion).


Leading methods were demonstrated and practiced in a roomy arena with a number of obstacles to negotiate. Driving methods were also practiced.


The clinic also included her husband Lee's presentations of Natural Balance principles and balanced hoof trims, explaining the anatomy and balanced trim of the hoof.


Neighbor Cheyleen Davis's enthusiastic mini-lecture and instruction on parasitology was fascinating - students each eagerly collected and prepped samples of horse poo for examination under microscopes (only one single parasite egg was found in 6 horse samples!).


The clinic concluded with a day of mounted work featuring Connected riding with correct posture and seat.

"It's all about having a happy, healthy horse," Naomi said.

The value of the clinic wasn't just the knowledge gained by the participants, but the camaraderie between the students and teachers during the clinics and in the evenings. Fast friendships can form with a group of dedicated horse people who believe in the same principles of having better relationships with their equine partners.

Naomi is such a capable, encouraging instructor whose earnestness is contagious to her pupils. it's no wonder people traveled halfway around the world to continue learning more from her about this gentle method of working with horses.

2013 Owyhee Fandango

Monday May 27 2013

If you came to the 3-day Owyhee Fandango in southwestern Idaho May 24-26, you were lucky to witness two icons of the sport of Endurance Riding reach an amazing milestone.

In winning the 100-mile ride on day 3, Joyce Sousa's awesome mount LV Integrity finished his 33rd 100-mile ride, and he crested 8000 AERC miles. He also received the Best Condition award. It was the pair's 5th visit to the annual Owyhee Fandango.

Over 15 seasons of riding, 20-year-old "Ritzy" has completed 127 of 132 starts, with 16 wins, 66 Top Ten finishes (including a 6th in Tevis), and 3 Tevis buckles. Joyce Sousa has over 22,000 miles. The pair were the 2003 Lightweight National Champions, and the 2002 and 2009 National 100 Mile Champions.

Joyce and Ritzy completed the 100 miles in 12:43. Second and third were Tara Rothwell and Roz Cusak riding Tara's horses Legendary Impression and Laser Wynd. On the third loop, Laser Wynd tripped and threw Roz to the ground, knocking the wind out of her and banging up her shoulder. Roz re-mounted (with effort), and the 4 of them continued on, finishing the ride together in 13:24. It was Legendary Impression's first 100-mile ride. Both horses are Tevis-bound, if all things continue smoothly along that trail.

Robert and Melissa Ribley finished 4th and 5th in 15:55, on Mi Esmet and Regret.

Cynthia Peticolas sponsored Junior Anya Levermann on Anya's first 100-mile ride; they finished 6th and 7th, on BBA Fareed and Bishop, in 19:05 when the near-full moon was up over the Owyhee desert.

Christoph Schork of Global Endurance Training Center was the only pull in the 100 when his horse Sand's Bad Debt hit a gopher hole which left him lame at the 3rd vet check.

Dian Woodward, also of Global Endurance Training Center, won the 80 mile ride and Best Condition on Starlit Way, in 9:17. Lee Pearce was 2nd on Fire Mt Malabar in 9:57. Junior Tori Church finished 3rd in 13:02.


The Owyhee trails covered the desert and scenic Sinker and Hart Creek canyons, and followed the Snake River and the historic Oregon Trail, and took a tour around 10,000-year-old Native American Indian petroglyphs on Snake River boulders.

3 horse-and-rider teams completed all 3 days of the LD. 5 horse-and-rider teams completed all 3 days/160 miles.


This corner of the AERC Northwest region has a strong Junior contingent. They're the future of our sport! Over the 3 Fandango days, 11 Juniors completed 21 various ride distances and spent all their spare time horsing around, riding extra horses bareback and playing together. 10-year-old Sarah Holloway not only rode her first 50 mile ride, she rode her first 160 miles. Junior Anya Levermann completed her first 100-mile ride. Canadian Junior Karalee Anderson (riding horses owned by Gail Jewell and Elroy Karius) finished all 3 days/160 miles to complete her qualifications for this year's Tevis Cup.

Twenty years from now, several of these juniors will probably be riding 8000-mile horses, and brandishing a slew of 100-mile rides under their Tevis-buckle belts.

The Amazing Sinker Canyon

Saturday May 18 2013

It's Sinker Canyon like you've never seen it before. Lush, red (canyon walls), green (trees and grass), ripply (water), old mines, and one cow.


It'll be day 1 of the May 24-26 Owyhee Fandango.

[video here]


or link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD6o6Carws8&feature=youtu.be

The Mystery Road

Monday May 6 2012

Red rhyolite cliffs rose high above us like impenetrable crenellated castle walls,

and guarded the verdant Castle Creek alongside which we rode.


The canyon walls squeezed together in places, providing excellent lounging/hunting hangouts for cougars (we didn't see or smell any), and widened in others to provide open meadows where homesteaders long ago eked out a living. Remnants of their orchards still survive in this canyon with year-round running water. The homesteaders left behind plows and harrows,

collapsed corrals,

a well-preserved (and elegantly constructed) dugout stone house,

and an old car, its innards rusting into the desert.


Beaver ponds

and meadows of rich grass made it easy to see why pioneers preferred this out-of-the-way canyon.


Just before the road dead ended far up the canyon, we saw another mysterious, enticing, and clearly-once-used two-track road that beat a path up and out of Castle Creek canyon, heading up a draw and aiming for the flats, toward the Owyhee Mountains.

Where did it go? Would it connect up with Alder Creek and the road to the Crazy Woman Mine? Most importantly: Could we make a new scenic loop for the next endurance ride?

Working for ride managers, you get that same compelling urge they have to explore, to discover new trails, and incorporate them into endurance rides, to share the beauty of new country with riders.

We marked the road for future exploration, and took up the research back home, on maps and google earth. That road doesn't show up on a topo map, and it's only a faint track on google earth for a ways.

But it must be a road that connects up somewhere. Surely the early pioneers didn't create a two-track road just up out of the canyon to make their cell phone calls? Cattle, at least, must have continued beating the track into a well-used trail on up toward the mountains, because that's what cows do.

It's a road that clearly must be explored another day.

Owyhee Tough Sucker II: Same Trails, Different Desert

Saturday April 27 2013

The trails were the same for the Owyhee Tough Sucker II... but we could have been riding in an entirely different desert. It's all about the weather. Storm clouds and rain during the Tough Sucker I painted the Owyhee desert different hues of gold and yellow, black, blue and purple; sun and heat during the Tough Sucker II made the desert bigger, dustier, and white hot.

The morning trail started with dust


and long morning shadows over the dry Owyhee desert.


Horses didn't drink so much water at the Tough Sucker I, but most of the water tubs and sponge buckets were near empty on this hot ride, where one thermometer at Ridecamp showed 87° in the shade of a trailer. A decent breeze kept trail heat at a bearable level.


Hay stops, particularly at Hallelujah Junction were a treat and a rest stop on trail for the horses.


Rhett and Steph, Jose and I posed at our favorite overlook of the Snake River.


A breeze kept gnats at bay along the Snake River. Nance fetched water for all of us to pour on our hot horses.


She tripped over that rock at her left foot, but John missed the shot!


Hot, dry, windless and dusty on the south side of Wild Horse Butte, we followed the Oregon Trail,


to another welcomed water stop.


Coming up out of the Birds of Prey Badlands,


we followed the last of the dusty trail home, back to camp.


15 of 18 finished the 25 mile ride. Winner Flora Gertsch won Best Condition on Belesema Finalia.

2 Real Tough Suckers started and finished the 75-miler and tied for first; Karen Bumgarner and Z Summer Thunder won Best Condition.


20 of 23 finished the 50-mile ride. It's usually not a surprise when heavyweight rider Lee Pearce and 14-year-old Fire Mt Malabar win Best Condition, which they did again… but what was surprising is that it was Malabar's 30th Best Condition award. Could that be an AERC record? The pair won the National Best Condition award of 2011. Malabar is a son of the redoubtable 7000+ mile, 1992 AERC Hall of Fame horse Sierra Fadwah +/, and knowing how tough Sierra Fadwah was, and how outstanding his get turned out to be, Malabar and Lee still have a lot of good miles of trails and Best Conditions ahead of them.

Owyhee Tough Sucker I: Riders on the Storm!

April 6 2013

There's always something tough about the April Owyhee Tough Sucker rides, and it's usually the weather.

And there are always tough suckers that come prepared for anything, usually the weather!


The Owhyee Tough Sucker I didn't disappoint in the elements department nor in the rewards. The 50% chance of rain and cool breeze didn't deter the riders, but it did keep the gnats away, which is always a bonus feature in the spring months. A heavy cloud cover kept the desert cool all day (convenient for those horses who hadn't shed all their winter coats yet) while steel blue storm clouds flitted to the east and west and overhead, scattering rain showers, painting the desert different moods, and testing the veracity of raincoats.

With John on the Dramatic Sunny, and Steph on the Amazing Flying Rhett (almost 22 years old, and 6000+ miles, and as Rhett as ever!), I tagged along on Steph's wonderful Jose for the 50 mile ride.


The trails were familiar, but they still always feel like you're still seeing them for the first time. The Hallelujah Trail along one of the rims of the Badlands never gets old, offering a sweeping view from the Owyhee Mountains (under a wind-churned tablecloth of a snow cloud) to the black bluffs of Wild Horse Butte along the Snake River to the north, where we'd be riding on Loop 2. The striated yellow hills and lines of sediment still show where this land used to sit under water.


Off the rim trail, the Hallelujah Wash (which you wouldn't want to be near in a flash flood!) led to Hallelujah Junction where you could imagine an old stage stop as the horses partook of water and hay. Climbing up the Hallelujah Badlands trail in a light rain shower, we emerged on the flats and into the breeze which dried us off by the time we reached camp for the vet check, where Robert the vet and volunteers were bundled up against the steady strong wind.


Loop 2 and the familiar jaunt around Wild Horse Butte still looked different under the blue gray clouds, the Snake River a silvery sliver beneath the imposing volcanic cliffs. Rounding the butte on the historic Oregon Trail, we followed an intriguing new cow trail back out through the maze of gullies and hills, just as one of those blue-black clouds found us and let loose with desert rain! The real desert rain where the dark clouds faded to a white haze of rain, real rain. We hunched down in our raincoats as the tough horses bowed their heads and tried to throw their butts to the drops, while still keeping up the steady trotting, until the footing went south along with the trail.


Emerging at Hallelujah Junction again for a water and hay break, the desert rain continued, puddles started collecting and the trails became little streams that turned the footing to Owyhee Gumbo. Just a little rain damps down the dust; just a little more and the ashy sand turns to clay that sticks like glue to feet.


We all turned into wet chickens as the horses slogged along at a careful walk, some handling the footing better than others. Hallelujah Badlands was pretty nasty by the time we slid our way up it (it "turned to snot", Steph accurately described it) and out onto the rim. (Once we got off the Badlands trail, Steph pulled off Rhett's Easyboot gloves because he was slipping the worst; they weighed about 5 pounds a piece!)


By the time the footing got better (harder two-track roads), the sun had come out and with it the stunning beauty of the desert: the Hallelujah Badlands to the west were spotlit in gold, the Snake River cliffs to the north were splashed in purple and black beneath yet another fierce dark blue storm cloud. Just a little bit of renegade lightning and thunder to the south kept things… interesting… but not scary. Horses and humans dried off again, then the clouds came again and we arrived back at camp at the finish at the start of another lovely rain shower.

It just doesn't get old - the wonderful horses, the awesome trails, this sport of endurance and the Tough Suckers who do it. There were 4 new riders, two juniors, and a few horses who successfully completed their first rides. Ride manager Regina's waiting hot dinner and the ridiculously tasty desserts (one by Carrie) during the awards were additional rewards for the Tough Suckers who braved the Owyhee Storms.

Tough Sucker II is April 27: bring it on!


An imaginative Owyhee trail marker