My Tevis Story is a bit unusual – enter a rider and horse – neither one have ever done an endurance ride; the horse was not bred and trained for endurance (he was trained as a western pleasure and dressage horse); and I had only ridden him for a month. It wasn’t meant to be a pair so unlikely to enter - but fate just intervened.
I had been riding NATRC competitive trail for over 10 years, but this year I had a 9 year old half arab mare out of Hasty Flyer who was ready to compete. My goal was to do the Tevis so my training plan included riding all the nearby NATRC rides and a couple endurance rides up through June and then take a month off. At my first endurance ride in Denver, I was pulled at the first vet check for slight lameness. I didn’t get to see much of what an endurance ride is all about - there were only about a dozen riders in the 50 mile ride. I figured I would just have to try again at the endurance ride in Fort Howes, Montana.
A few weeks later I did a NATRC competitive trail ride that Dr. Greg Fellers judged in Navajo Lake, NM. This is one tough ride – very rocky and to make matters worse I got lost and had to canter the first 30 miles. My horse checked out fine both days and I breathed a sigh of relief. Not so fast. Two weeks later timing the trail for the AFA Competitive Trail Ride my horse came up decidedly lame. A visit to Colorado State University and she was put on 10 days rest and then slow conditioning. But I was still hopeful – I had two months before the Tevis. I was a week into the slow conditioning phase when a fellow Natrc rider, Janna Combs, called me to suggest that I take her horse, SA JHake, as a backup. I thought she was crazy – the last thing I wanted to do was ride the Tevis on a borrowed horse that I didn’t know very well. I knew that Jhake had done one NATRC CTR in 2009 and had done two in 2010. He finished the rides sound and with plenty of horse left, but he had trouble at the P&Rs – losing points as his heartrate would be too high after the 10 minute hold. While Colorado is very mountainous, JHake lived out on the plains – no rocks, no trees, no drop-offs, no mountains to climb up or down. Janna is not one to be brushed off easily – she kept at it until I finally agreed to drive the 3 hours to get him. All the way there I kept saying to myself – what am I doing. I am never going to take a borrowed horse to the Tevis and I don’t have time to ride another horse. I need to be getting my horse ready.
The first few days I rode Jhake – I was more certain than ever he was not a Tevis horse – since he was used to the plains, for the first ten minutes of riding him, he would shy horribly at any rock, tree, etc. All I could think was how awful it would be to shy over a cliff in the Sierras. But every day that I rode him, he got better and there was more and more that I liked. I knew there was no time to condition – if he wasn’t already in shape; then there was nothing I could do in the next 3 weeks to get him in shape. So instead I focused on what I could do – put him in the scariest situations I could find and see how he would react and whether we could be a team. I drove into the Colorado mountains where I knew we could find tough climbs (up and down). At one place, we came upon Forest Service personnel putting out a fire next to the trail. Jhake calmly and quietly walked over and around the fire hoses without batting an eye. About a mile down the trail Jhake spooked and did a 180 – during the spin I glimpsed a yellowish form lumbering up the canyon to our right – a bear!! I got Jhake stopped within a couple of feet, and I thought wow!! I wonder if he will turn around and continue walking up the trail if I ask him. He did it – what a great horse. I called up friends to ride – and then would ask them to leave us, run past us, etc. – to see how manageable he was when other horses were taking off around him. He could have cared less. If you asked him to go fast; he went fast. But if you wanted to slow down – no problem. You could pass horses and they could pass you and he didn’t waste any energy fussing around. I put a heart monitor on him to see what was going on at the P&Rs – what I learned was that his heart rate would come down to pass the 60 bpm of a typical endurance vet check – but after 10 minutes of rest NATRC penalizes if you don’t get below 48 bpm and stay there. Jhake would get down to 48 bpm but then would hear something or see something and his heart rate would go up to 52 – so I knew he wasn’t conditioned as much as I would have liked, but with careful riding we still might be able to manage.
I had to make a decision on July 9th (the last day to back out of the Tevis). My horse just didn’t feel right to me - she didn’t have the forward motion she usually has. So on July 8th I told my husband I wasn’t going to go. But I kept thinking that with Jhake, I had a horse that was a serious unknown – but was better in many ways than my horse. So on July 9th I changed the horse on my entry to Jhake. I felt pretty confident that Jhake could do 36 miles to Robinson Flat – and if that was all the further we got – well that would just be a whole lot of fun. I did call Janna and say – hey, you do understand that horses die on this ride don’t you – not often but it can happen. She told me to go for it – that she wasn’t worried because Jhake would take care of both of us. People also ask me – why would you choose the Tevis, the toughest endurance ride in the world, as your first endurance ride. As noted above – I really didn’t mean for it to be my first endurance ride – but after reading about the Tevis – with 600 volunteers, 30 vet judges, a very defined trail – I felt like this ride was probably one of the “safer” endurance rides to do. Yes the terrain is very challenging, but there is so much support along the trail. I felt comfortable knowing that there were a lot of experienced vets/people who were going to be watching out for my horse at the vet stops, and that if anything was going awry – we would be pulled and trailered back to Auburn.
The week before the ride – my husband’s father died unexpectedly so my driving partner and crew chief had to back out. I called a friend who had crewed Tevis the year before and she agreed to fly out to meet me. She is the ultimate organized person, and was a huge help. My plan had always been to go out the week before the ride, stay at the fairgrounds, and ride the end of the trail. If we didn’t finish – at least I would have seen that part of the trail and if we did finish, it might give Jhake extra energy to know he was coming back to his stall and we would know the end of the trail cold. So Jhake and I left Colorado on June 19th and took 3 days to drive alone across 1200 miles of the western US. I had never trailered that far alone – but I used the same approach I took to riding 100 miles – I had never gone that far – but I had driven to Salt Lake City – so it was just driving to Salt Lake City 3 days in a row.
I spent the week before riding the last 10 miles of the trail twice daily. I stayed in my trailer next to Jhake’s covered stall and would get up at 7:30 for breakfast, ride until 11; back at the Fairgrounds for lunch and a nap in the lounge chair next to Jhake’s stall; then over to the Starbucks for a drink, blessed air conditioning, and use their wifi. Then dinner and back on the trail to ride in the dark. Most of my riding was alone – I knew Jhake and I were going to be pretty much alone on the trail (even if there were horses around us) – so figured we might as well train that way.
My crew flew into Sacramento and we left for Robie Park to set up camp the Wednesday before the ride.
I met lots of endurance people – some of them are the biggest names in endurance riding. I found all of these people to be really friendly and helpful. The first question they would ask is how many endurance rides had I done – and how many had my horse done. I got the feeling that when I told them that this was both my borrowed horse’s first ride and my first endurance ride - there was a bit of surprise and I suspect they didn’t think we had much of a chance of finishing. Most riders will have done a number of 50 mile rides before they try the Tevis. But one of the top riders, Crockett Dumas, told me to just ride this ride like a NATRC ride, and I would be fine. And he was right (thank you, Crockett, those words of encouragement were a huge comfort).
Friday was spent checking in the horse with the vet and just by coincidence the head of the NATRC judging committee, Dr. Mike Peralez, was the vet who did the check in on Jhake. We also spent a lot of time organizing everything we would need at the (2) one hour mandatory stops and going over the logistics of the crew getting to the two locations
Saturday morning we arose in the dark at 3 AM. I tacked up Jhake while my crew, Shelly and Pam, broke camp to be ready to drive to Forest Hill/Robinson Flats. Hopefully, I would meet them at Robinson Flats 7 hours into the ride. Horses/riders went into one of two large temporary corrals (“pens”) where we could mill around (in the dark! Dust everywhere!) until they led us a half mile down a dirt road to the official start. This process helps get the 180+ horses out in a quiet way – and it did work. There were a few horses that were a little antsy but most of the horses walked very calmly down the road. At 5:15 AM we were free to go at whatever pace we wanted. The trail was mostly two track with some single track for 10 miles to the base of Squaw Valley – and by the time we got up there the sun was up and the views were beautiful. We rode under the Squaw Valley ski lifts to the top of Squaw Valley where water tanks provided the first water for horses in 13 miles. I trotted 10 miles of this trail at 7 MPH and walked the steep road up to the summit getting there 5 minutes after my target time. At this ride the #1 opponent is time – there are cutoff times at many of the vet checks – and if you arrive after that time, you don’t get to go on. So there is constant pressure to keep up the pace. At the same time you need to give your horse enough time to drink water, eat and recover or your horse may start showing signs of over-exertion and get pulled by a vet. So the entire 24 hours is spent doing a very stressful balancing act. Each segment of the trail needs its own winning strategy.
Just past the summit, we entered the Chief Granite Wilderness area which is very rocky and very beautiful. It reminds me of the Grand Mesa in Colorado – lots of marshy areas with beautiful flowers. The trail here is the rockiest of the entire 100 miles and is where horses risk losing their horse shoes (which sets them up to be lame and be pulled from the ride). There are also some “bogs” – this year there has been so much snow/water up there – that the bogs weren’t as “boggy” as usual. Some of the mud was washed away and left was a lot of water running over a lot of rocks. I couldn’t believe that any of the horses would stay sound after going over all those rocks at a trot. The pace of this ride is so fast that you have to trot the majority of the time – uphill, downhill, over rocks, through water, etc.- but a danger of trotting over rough terrain – the horse tripping – happened to a rider in front of me and she and her horse did a somersault. Fortunately, neither was hurt, and they got up and went on.
Coming up were two very challenging parts of the trail – Cougar Rock and Elephant Trunk. I was mentally prepared for Cougar Rock – I thought. I didn’t think it would be too scary. It is a rock face that is probably 20-30 feet that you zig zag up and over. When I got there – there were 2 riders in front of me, an HRTV crew filming for a documentary at the top left of the rock, and a photographer on the top right of the rock. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a figure in red stumble backwards and fall head over heals two stories down on the trail below. As the figure was tumbling, I screamed, Jhake wheeled around, and I asked the rider behind me – Was that a person or a rider and horse that just fell? He told me it was the photographer. The poor guy was lying on a boulder on the trail; he was conscious and able to talk (I heard him call out that he had a large gash). Other people/volunteers were scrambling down from Cougar Rock to help him. We now had to go up Cougar Rock as the alternative trail around was obviously blocked. When it was my turn – Jhake got almost to the top and then veered toward the right where the photographer had been (I had images of the two of us going over and landing on top of the photographer and his rescuers – killing all of us) – so I quickly leaped off and grabbed the reins and pulled him back to the trail and up over the rock. There is a level place where you can get back on – but my knees were shaking so badly that I had a hard time getting in the saddle. I was disappointed there would be no picture of Jhake and I going over Cougar Rock – but then we wouldn’t have looked so good anyway. A short distance farther and you come to Elephant Trunk – a trail that is only wide enough for the horse’s four feet – and a vertical drop off of 1000s of feet off your left side and a rock face 1000’s of feet up on your right– it is not a very long section – but it sure is scary. It gets its name because it winds around the cliff in the form of an elephant’s trunk. I held my breath and made sure not to look to my left or down.
At 15.5 miles past the Squaw Valley Summit (28.5 miles into the ride), I came to the first Gate & Go (a vet checks the horse’s pulse and if it is below a target number, you get to get back on the trail) – it was bedlam there – lots of horses and riders; not enough volunteers. With all the congestion, I was amazed no rider or horse got kicked. It was my first Gate & Go ever and I wasn’t really sure what to do. This was also the only place I ran into rude behavior – I got into a fight as another rider made an attempt to grab the water bucket I had waited patiently for. We ended up “sharing” that bucket. As I stood in line for the vet, Jhake decided he would like to coat his wet (from water) body in dirt, and he laid down (with the saddle on). A volunteer wanted to pull me out of line and put me in the shade thinking that Jhake might be colicking – but I said absolutely not – he was just trying to get some dust back on him. No way did I want to be pulled out of that long line and have to get back in it. Luckily a vet became available and I scooted up to the vet. I was there 24 minutes – longer than I had targeted – so I was getting more and more behind my target time. Also – since I had never really done an endurance ride, I didn’t realize that if your horse is not through the vet check in 30 minutes and pulsed down, you are automatically pulled. I am so glad I did not step out of that vet line. The weather forecast for the day is a high of 98 degrees with higher than normal humidity – it was pretty darn warm. I wondered given how much trouble we had getting through this vet check – if we would make it through the rest of the day and night.
The next 7.5 mile section of trail was a logging road – not horribly rocky and some ups and downs but all of it was trot-able. I made time here averaging 8 mph but hitting 10-15 mph in places. I was finally able to get away from riding in a group and was not eating quite as much dust. Both Jhake and I were starting to tire as it had been 36 miles and 7 hours with little food for either of us. We were finally coming into Robinson Flat for our one hour hold, lunch, and to see our crew. Boy was I glad to see them. Jhake had twisted a hind shoe in the rocks in the Wilderness and it was spread and sticking past the hoof on the right side. My crew found the farrier and we got it reshaped and reset. I ate, drink, changed clothes, washed my very dirty face, and saddled back up to leave. Amazing the difference in both horse and rider after some rest, water, and food.
In the afternoon, I rode by myself. I had read every book, story, etc. about the Tevis Trail so I knew where all the scary places were. Luckily in California – unlike Colorado while the trails can be narrow with drop offs, there is usually a lot of vegetation that I figure will stop my fall if we go over. The stop after Robinson Flats, Dusty Corners (appropriately named I might add), was just a water stop. Jhake drinks quickly, efficiently and lots – so I scooted past a whole bunch of people and made great time to the Gate & Go at Last Chance. I get through there pretty quickly and onto the drop into the canyon to the swinging bridge. I got off Jhake and ran down the canyon. At the bottom we stopped for water at a really pretty spot looking at the Swinging Bridge. I turned to walk Jhake back up the trail and Jhake lost his footing on a rock and fell to his knees (I learned that shoes with pads are more slippery), scrambled back up and fell again. He finally got his footing and got around the rock. His legs were missing hair – but no blood and I just prayed he wasn’t lame. We walked across Swinging Bridge by ourselves without incident (if you get more than one horse on this bridge it starts bouncing and swinging). Then we started the long climb out of the canyon – many switchbacks. At one point I saw a person to my left heading down a deep ravine, and as I looked further down saw that a horse (that had been around a corner just ahead of me) had fallen off the trail and down the ravine about 100 feet and was cast upside down. I realized then that this was the place where a year ago another horse had fallen backwards, hit its head, and died instantly. All I could do was lean forward and focus on getting Jhake up the steep switchback ahead of me. The horse was eventually rescued and was all right – but again my legs were shaking in my stirrups. I don’t mind a hard trail – but this trail was now feeling pretty dangerous.
I arrive at the Gate & Go at Deadwood. I am still ahead of the crowd – but the cut off times are getting closer so the pressure is rising. And there are bees all over the place – making it hard to get the horses’ pulses down (what next?!?!?). I finally get out of there and head to the little town of Michigan Bluff (about a dozen houses lining a block long street). They usually line the streets but it is getting late and the crowd is not so large. As I come into the Gate & Go at Chicken Hawk, I seem to catch up with a lot of riders – it is very congested and again it takes extra time to get through. Once again I am on to a much needed one hour hold and the promise of my wonderful crew to help me at Forest Hill. When I get off Jhake at Forest Hill, Jhake and I are so tired that I collapse out of the saddle and Jhake takes a couple of steps that make me think he might fall over, too.
But water, food, and a shower help immensely and an hour later we are perky and ready to go - - yes – we have gone 64 miles and have been riding for 16 hours – and we are about to ride 7 MORE HOURS and do 32 MORE MILES mostly downhill on cliffs that fall 1000 feet down to the river IN THE DARK. We realize that at this time of night, the frontrunners are getting into Auburn and they are done – and we still have 7 hours (how depressing). People in Forest Hill are still cheering us on from the lawn chairs – but it is so dark we couldn’t see them – we could only hear them. Actually the first two hours of riding in the dark was fun – the moon was coming up; we followed green glow sticks that hung from trees – it was magical. I glommed onto two ladies who had finished the Tevis before – and followed the red glows of their headlamps down the trail. Thank you, Steph and Nance, from the Northwest!!! By the time we did the 17 miles down, down, down to the river – we had about 10 people in the group. That was fun – but it was horribly dusty. Sometimes I could not see the rider in front of me through the dust. We trotted as much as we could – and one time Jhake tripped and skidded several feet on his front legs, nose and cheek – luckily he was able to pull himself up and pick back up at the trot. I managed to stay in the saddle as my thighs were locked in a death grip on the saddle and I had my right hand gripping his mane at all times. In the dark there is no point in turning the horse – the rider can’t see the trail really so you just have to trust your horse and let him make all the decisions about where to turn. Riding in the dark was fun, but very hard on the body. The one positive thing is you can’t see how terrifying the trail is. Upon the advice of many of my friends who had ridden the Tevis, I purposely did not ride this section of the trail during the day in the week ahead of the Tevis.
At the bottom of this 17 mile section is another Gate & Go marked by huge spotlights lighting up the whole area – tons of volunteers (it is now past midnight –where do they find these volunteers?) offering to hold the horse, sponge down the horse, get the rider a sandwich, and get the horse hay or mash. Jhake was ravenous – but eating hay would make his pulse go up. So I had to keep him away from the hay until we got through the vet. By this time he had about had it with doing the Tevis and he was definitely feeling pretty cranky. We got out of there and 3 miles down the river, we came to the river crossing (the American River). It is marked with green glow sticks floating in the water to show you where to cross. This is the place where they have to work with four different organizations to hold the water back for the day so the horses can safely cross (the rafters hate it). Even so – the water comes up to just below my knees on Jhake who is pretty tall. Luckily, the water is not freezing like in the Rockies and except for the squishiness in my riding boots – it feels pretty good.
We are on level terrain now and Jhake has somehow figured out we are heading for Auburn – his home for the previous week so he has stepped up the pace. I am just doing my best to stay balanced in the saddle (not an easy task at this point). When he catches sight of another big set of spotlights in the distance – he knows there must be hay there and as ravenous as he is – he really picks up the pace. One more Gate & Go at Lower Quarry (after 2 AM!!) and we will be home free. We get through there in quick time and are easily ahead of the cut off time – and now we are on the trail we have done in the daylight the previous week (8 times!!). My strategy of staying at the Auburn Fairgrounds pays off as Jhake willingly moved out. Glow sticks no longer light the trail (I thought they just didn’t mark this part of the trail but then realize that the glow stick life has come to an end and the sticks no longer shine) – but since we have done it so many times, we don’t hesitate to make the right turns. At this point I know we can make it in at a walk, and since there is no advantage to coming in early (and risk to trotting the trail in the dark), I ask Jhake to walk in. We walk across No Hands Bridge, past the waterfall, and up through a series of spooky Black Holes to finally pop out at the Finish Line in the bright spotlights where my wonderful crew again meets me and takes over control of Jhake. By luck, the vet who does my final check is Dr. Mike Peralez – the same vet who did the check in. I got a big hug and proceeded onto the stadium for the victory lap (only my crew was in the stands by this time). Time in 4:58 AM – 17 minutes ahead of cutoff. Not many minutes to spare. Jhake is not at all happy about a rider getting back on him – but once in the arena – his show training takes over – and he does the loveliest little western pleasure collected show trot (no picture cantering madly across the finish line for me). I can only think that he must have been thinking – well, we are finally here at the show – couldn’t you trailer me the 100 miles next time? What an absolutely incredible horse.
Every muscle in my body is screaming in agony – I can’t walk or get into/out of the pickup truck without wincing for 3 days. To put this in perspective I NEVER have pain or need painkillers on a ride – so this really something new. My crew has not slept in 30 hours either – so we went back to the hotel and slept for 2 ½ hours; got up for awards; went back to bed for 1 ½ hours; went out to dinner; and back to bed for 8 blissful hours.
People ask me if I will do it again – some riders do the Tevis every year (how do they do it?). It was an amazing adventure – but I think riding 24 hours at a trot over torturous terrain and eating dust the entire way and spending the kind of money it takes to drive halfway across the country - - - is a one time thing for me. I still look back and can’t believe we finished – I attribute it to 1) one heck of a horse (thanks, Janna) 2) a lot of luck; 3) an awesome crew and 3) tons of advice from other riders that helped me put together a strategy 4) doing all those NATRC rides where there really is no advantage in finishing first – the trick is learning to pace yourself to move as efficiently down the trail as you can and have horse left over at the end.
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