Nick Warhol and Forever Dawn, 2010

The Tevis 2010- a comeback ride, and always an adventure!

This ride! It’s been 4 years since I was able to enter, and that’s way, way too long. Follow my math logic- if I want to equal my hero Barbara White and get myself 30 buckles, and if I enter every 4 years, (add the three, carry the seven), I’ll be about 153 years old if I keep at this pace. I guess I either should have started sooner, or, darn it, enter every year. Tevis 06 was my Donnie’s first 100, and he romped through it. The next year I was recovering from my ACL replacement surgery, so Judy rode the D man to a great completion. In 08 was the fire and the canceled ride, and last year my boy was recovering from an injury, so no go for me. I have been pondering the 2010 Tevis for the past 18 months while Donnie healed up, and as my luck is occasionally good, the endurance gods smiled on me and he’s better. We made his comeback ride at Washoe in April, did all three days at the Wild West ride in May, rode the beautiful but tough Mendocino Magic ride in June, all just fine. It’s a hard thing to be off of your horse for so long, but its part of the game, and it just makes it so much sweeter when he comes back.

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Crewing for Judy Long and Forever Dawn, 2007

Tevis 2007- A Crew’s Perspective

What a show, what an event, what a lot of work! I attended the Tevis again this year, as I intended to, but due to circumstances beyond my control, namely my knee surgery in April, I was unable to ride. I really wanted to ride the crazy thing again, as I intend to every year, but I couldn’t. Patience, Patience, Patience! This is a word that does not share residence with other words in my brain very well. What’s a rider to do when they can’t ride? Crew, of course! The day my wife Judy heard I was going to have surgery, she comforted me as a wife will- “Oh no, that’s no good. I’m so sorry. I’ll help you with your recovery. It will be okay- you will be better soon.” She gave me a nice hug. Thanks, sweetie. She then snuck outside, looked around to be sure I could not see her, pumped her fist up and down and said “YES!”, as if her Giants had just won the World Series. My outage meant only one thing- she would get to ride my Dawn on the big ride this year. He’s come quite a way in his first three years. (It’s amazing I have had him three years now. Where is this time going?) He has started 30 rides and completed 30 rides, including Tevis as his first 100 last year, which he pulled me through with ease. I didn’t want him to miss a chance to do the ride due to my injury, so Judy got the nod! My riding buddy Sally helped me beyond belief during my post surgery recovery by coming over twice a week and riding my boy to keep him going for me. Her prize? She rode him on the three days of the Wild West ride, where she had an absolutely wonderful time. She was just having fun and enjoying herself, but ended up in second overall for the three days combined. She decided then and there she was going to steal him, but is still working on her plan so I won’t notice. Perhaps spray paint Warpaint white and add on some flea-bitten specks and a pair of cute ears? She’s crafty!

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Nick Warhol and Forever Dawn, 2006

The Tevis 100, 2006

Oh, what a ride!

I looked at the Tevis this year as kind of a breakthrough ride for me. I have started this thing six times in the past and have only completed it twice. That’s not a great record as far as I’m concerned, but then again, this no ordinary endurance ride. Not by a long shot. Not by a longer shot. Take the longest shot you can imagine, double it, then add a few miles, throw in some more rocks, and you have the Tevis. It’s not that it isn’t possible to finish, because you can, it’s just harder than most other rides anywhere. That’s one of the things that make it so attractive, since over half of the starters don’t get to finish, and believe me; every starter out there wants to get to Auburn worse than just about anything. That’s the thing that makes it so important- the fact that the rider next to you wants to finish so badly it hurts. The rider in front of him wants to finish just as bad. There is a lot of sheer willpower floating around out in the air above Robie Park on Friday evening before the ride.

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Nick Warhol and Holly, 2002

Tevis 2002- What is it about this ride?

Another Tevis has come and gone, and with it around 216 stories of adventure, excitement, and unfortunately, problems. But what is it about this ride that keeps people so committed to getting through it? I don’t know, but I know how I feel about it. Remember in the second Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Kahn, how the bad guy, Kahn, felt about Captain Kirk? Kahn was so driven to destroy Kirk that he gave up the chance to take over the universe, just to fulfill that personal drive. When Kahn is on the bridge of the Enterprise, one of his crew asks him why, why, why is it so important to get Kirk? Kahn looks at the crew guy with venom in his eyes and says: “Because he TASKS me!”

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Nick Warhol and Warpaint, 2001

Tevis, 2001

One of the toughest ones ever?

Another Tevis ride is in the books. There is just something about this ride that keeps people coming back, year after year. Like me. This was my fourth attempt in five years. If you look at the odds, most people who do this ride a lot have about a 50% completion rate. That only makes sense, since statistically about 50% of the riders don’t finish in any given year. Before this year I was 3 starts, 3 finishes, with 2 completions. Okay, only 2 finishes, but I count being pulled at the finish line finishing, just not completing. Okay, Okay, I’m two for three. I guess I should not exaggerate, since I have this pet peeve about the ultimate exaggeration, “Reserve Champion.” Why do they use that? Why not say “second place,” or “runner up?” How come there is no “Reserve Reserve Champion” for third place? “Reserve Reserve Reserve Champion” for fourth? All right, I digress, but it still bugs me. At any rate, I tried for Tevis number four this year. Did I make it? You will have to read on to find out.

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Nick Warhol and Warpaint, 1999

Warpaint with Judy Long

Tevis 1999- The All Alone Ride

You can’t miss this horse. He stands out like a porcupine in a nudist colony, or a 90 pound fresh salmon on the floor of a donut shop. He doesn’t look like many of the horses at Tevis, in fact he looked like only one other that was there. He’s Warpaint, the Endurance Appaloosa. My wife Judy let me ride the spotted wonder at Tevis this year for a couple of reasons. My horse Shatta’s suspensory is still mending- he can’t do any rides until next year. Here I was, bummed to the max without a horse, when Judy decided to take pity on me and let me give him a try at the castle Rock 50. I finished the ride and had a great time, so I did the Oakland Hills 50 a few weeks later. I finished that one after a slight detour down the side of a mountain, but hey, not even plunging down a mountain can stop that horse. (Not even Gary Fend’s multiple attempts to make SURE I got lost on his trail could stop me!) The kicker was winning a free entry to Tevis at the AERC convention. Wouldn’t you know it, those entries aren’t transferable, not even to a spouse. Since I had been having so much fun on the horse doing conditioning rides she decided to give me a shot at my third Tevis. I finished the first one on Zion but got pulled at the finish, last year I finished really strongly on Shatta’s first Tevis and got my first buckle, and I wanted another one this year. For some reason this ride seems to posses me: there’s something very special about it. I’m not sure how to describe the attraction except to say that the ride is a challenge, and I really like what head vet Mitch Benson says about this particular ride: It’s 30% horse, 30% rider, and 40% luck. I was really depressed when I found I couldn’t ride on Shatta, and became just as excited when I realized I was able to do it again.

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Nick Warhol and Shatta, 1998

My Tevis Ride- 1998 Nick Warhol

The Tevis is 30% rider, 30% Horse, 40% Luck

Those were the words head vet Mitch Benson told me at the finish line of the 1997 Tevis, (my first attempt) where the leased horse I was riding was pulled for lameness. Zion had brought me all the way from Robe Park to Auburn in splendid fashion only to come up lame in the last couple of miles. It was an incredible ride despite the disappointment.

August 8, 1998. Fast-forward one year to Robe Park for the 44th annual Tevis Cup 100 mile ride. I had an entire year to replay the 97 ride over and over in my mind. My own horse Shatta had completed his first two 100 mile rides this past winter in excellent shape and was ready. We had a large group of riders in the event this year. My wide Judy had her “Wonder Appy” Warpaint ready to go as well. He finished his first Tevis attempt in 93 but injured himself in a fall in 96 on the bike path before Squaw and was pulled at Robinson Flat. Our long time friend and endurance buddy Marilyn R. Russell (5 completions out of 11 starts at Tevis) brought her feisty mare Cresta out for her first attempt at Tevis. Carolyn Stark-Schultz is a good friend and fellow club member who was trying Tevis on her new horse Echo that she bought from Becky and Judith this year. This would be Carolyn’s first attempt at a 100-mile ride. Norma Kover wanted to attempt Tevis, but like me last year realized her horse was not yet ready. Norma leased a horse named Josh from Potato Richardson for the ride and her first attempt at a 100. My buddy Brian Reeves brought his horse “Goofy” out for his first attempt at Tevis. Brian and I rode our horses’ first two 100’s this winter together from start to finish and developed a great team with Shatta and Goofy. Rounding out our group was none other than Samm Bartee and Kathy Adair all the way from Alabama. How in the world did they end up joining our group? That’s the beauty of the Internet. Judy and Samm became friends via E-mail immediately since they both ride Appys in endurance, one on the West Coast and the other in the South. We met Samm at the convention in Kentucky last year where she won an entry to Tevis in the raffle. She knew her Appy “Sir Revel” was not quite ready for the Tevis so she borrowed a wonderful Arab gelding named Cojur for six months to get ready and ride Tevis during a once-in-a-lifetime three week vacation. She sent out an E-mail asking for Tevis advice, so I asked her if she’d like to join me for the ride and for crewing help. She said, “Okay!”

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Nick Warhol and Zion, 1997

My Tevis ride 1997- Nick Warhol

The Tevis- the biggest, the best. The one hundred mile endurance ride from Truckee to Auburn California which ranks as one of the (if not the most) incredible rides in the world, both in terms of tradition and difficulty. The mere mention of the ride name brings about certain emotions which can be truly understood only by someone who has ridden it, and even more so by someone who has finished it. I tried it this year as my first 100 mile ride, although I started on a horse other than my own. I told myself a year ago I wouldn’t make the Tevis the first 100 mile ride for my young horse Shatta, so I leased a horse from longtime endurance rider Potato Richardson of Cool, California. Remember that TV special on National Geographic last year where that rather large TV celebrity rode the Tevis with the local expert? The local expert was none other than Potato. He set me up with a spunky little nine year old Arabian gelding named Zion who has completed the Tevis twice on two attempts. I met the horse two days before the ride and took him out for a spin at Potato’s ranch. He’s a powerful little gray guy at 14.2 hands, but he seemed more than capable of hauling my 204 pounds of me and tack through the Sierra Nevada mountains. We loaded him up in our trailer and headed out to the start of the ride at the Robe equestrian center, out in the forest about nine miles east of the Squaw Valley ski resort.

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