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| Homestead Magazine Summer 2008: Tour-De-Prance |
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By Dean Houghton
This endurance horse race retraces the historic Santa Fe Trail
High on the Glorieta Mesa, all is quiet in the pre-dawn hours of Labor Day, and, with no artificial lights for miles around, it is as dark as it gets. Just as the clock hits 5:30 a.m., a lone coyote sends out a howl that splits the thin air on this 7,000-foot plateau, a fitting wake-up call for four-dozen horses and riders who are about to take the first steps on a two-week-long, 515-mile adventure.
These long riders were the pioneers in a new event, the 2007 Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race Endurance Ride. Riders and their mounts began to stir for breakfast just as the first purple rays of dawn were beginning to wash New Mexico’s Sangre De Cristo mountains that were the background to the starting point of the race, just a few miles east of Santa Fe. It may sound
like a description from a dime-store Western
novel, but it was perfectly fitting. After all,
this event is a mix of racing and romance, a
celebration of horses and history all wrapped
up in a withering ride across a part of the High Plains that remains surprisingly wide
open in the 21st Century.
"The Santa Fe Trail was our nation's first
international trade highway," says Rob Phillips,
the Lawrence, Kan., horse-and-history
enthusiast who organized the race. "The connection between the Santa Fe Trail and the
horse makes for something magic." The explorer
Coronado traveled this path in 1541,
introducing Native Americans to the horse.
Phillips and a team of volunteers worked
for 18 months to find a path, on both public
and private lands, that would closely follow
the original trail. The race was set up along
the lines of the Tour de France bike race, with
10 stages of about 50 miles each. The original
Santa Fe Trail officially opened in 1821 when
trader William Becknell hauled goods via
mule train from Missouri to the plaza in Santa
Fe, which was a part of Mexico. The trail
became an 800-mile long trade artery that connected Kansas City to Santa Fe, allowing
merchants to sell their manufactured goods
in Santa Fe, and bring back the region’s silver
and other valuables to Missouri. The 2007
race began on the mesa and ended just south
of Kansas City at Gardner, Kan., allowing
515 miles on horseback, with horses trailered
at times to cover the remaining distance.
There’s also a legendary connection
between the Santa Fe Trail and endurance
horse racing. Francis X.
Aubry, a trader and daredevil, made
a $1,000 bet that he could ride the
trail in six days. According to the
legend, he left the plaza in Santa Fe and rode
hell-bent-for-leather, night and day, swapping
horses along the trail, and made it to Kansas
City just five days and 16 hours later. According
to newspaper accounts of the feat,
Aubry arrived much worse for the wear, and
the horses he rode didn’t fare any better.
Both the horses and the riders had much
more care during the two weeks of the Great
Santa Fe Trail Horse Race Endurance Ride. Under the guidelines of the American Endurance
Ride Conference, horses were checked
for condition before and after each stage,
as well as at mandatory veterinary checks
at a couple of points within each day’s ride.
There also was a tank of water waiting every
five miles along the route, allowing horses to
stay cool and hydrated.
Feels like family. The colorful cast of characters who made this first-ever Santa Fe ride
were galvanized into a family by the miles together on the trail. The sign painted on Tonya
Bear's truck reminds folks that she's known
as T. Bear. This Missouri rider is a veteran of
endurance events, and she has developed a
strategy for this one. "In most cases, I would
compete to win," she says. "On this event, I
intend to compete to complete. It’s a long ride,
so just finishing it is an accomplishment."
There’s a 66-year-old rider from Maryland
who brought his stallion out early to get used
to the elevation. The man’s name is Jean Albert
Renaud, but out here, they call him JAR.
He’s an entire notebook full of stories all by
himself. He and his horses have climbed on
an airplane to participate in endurance events
in the Middle East, and European royalty keep him on their speed dial list. He is the
only rider on the Great Santa Fe Trail race
to have produced his own music video about
horses and riding. And without a doubt, he
led the race in the amount of hugs delivered.
"This event has shortened the distance between
horsemen across America," he says.
"It’s a great chance to share knowledge and
our love for the horse. These people have
become my new family."
As you would expect to see at an endurance event, horses with Arabian blood are the norm. Strong and lightweight endurance saddles,
hi-tech riding clothing, and high-impact plastic helmets are the standard outfit. Except for California rider J Allen (just J, not J. or Jay). He's about to set sail on an American Quarter Horse, and he's riding an elegantly tooled, but heavy, Western saddle, while wearing jeans and boots and his well-worn cowboy hat. Sitting at the Santa Fe Downs racetrack, which served as a staging area before the race, J talks with a reporter as a light rain falls. "Nobody thinks I have a chance," he confides. But he will prove them wrong. Not only did he finish the ride, he ranked among the leaders on several of the race stages. And he’ll be back for the 2008 version of the race, once again starting on Labor Day weekend. (For more information, you can visit www.sfthorserace.com)
Other riders have a passion for a cause.
Texan Mac McSwain is riding a Spanish
Mustang, helping call attention to efforts to
preserve and protect America's first horse.
The Mustang is a natural for this kind of
riding, and Mac does well until Dodge City,
when an admiring throng of folks spook his
young horse, dumping Mac, who ends up
with a broken collarbone. Mac's wife, Diane,
picked up the reins and finished out the ride.
Then there is Laura Hayes, a New York
endurance rider who completed seven of the
10 stages of the 2007 Santa Fe ride. She’ll be
back for 2008, riding the trail to raise money
for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in
memory of Alison Marie Hayes, who died in
December 2007 at age 19. Laura plans to
organize bone-marrow registry drives in some
of the towns along the trail, hoping to raise
awareness of the need for donors.
Like the Tour de France, the Great Santa
Fe Trail Horse Race Endurance Ride allows
fans to get up close and personal with the
participants. Race villages at tour stops celebrated the arrival of the riders with music,
storytelling, and a carnival atmosphere. The
town of Council Grove, Kan., really embraced
the ride, taking advantage of its time
as a tour stop to provide a mini-festival. In
turn, many riders ventured down to the Hays
House restaurant to tip a toast to the trail at
the very same bar where Gen. George Custer
was known to wet his whistle when he was
stationed in the area. Even the Kansas Lottery
got into the act, issuing a popular $2 instant
ticket dedicated to the ride.
Getting to know the riders again
will be a priority for the 2008
race, as race promoter Phillips is
working with tourism officials to
encourage folks to follow along
the race with their recreational
vehicle and stay overnight near the participants.
"It’s a chance to develop rural tourism
by targeting people who can bring their hotel
room with them," he says. He hopes to see the
Santa Fe ride become an annual attraction.
The 2007 event downplayed the competitive
aspect of endurance racing, but there
were winners that were recognized at the end
of the trail. Scott Griffin, a Seattle-based relative newcomer to endurance riding, was the
overall winner with a combined time of 61.9
hours. California rider Karen Fredrickson
was recognized as the top participant among
those who rode only one horse over the course
of the ride. Her horse, Murphy, took her over
the trail in 86.1 hours. Only two other riders
completed each of the 10 stages. "Everyone
became a part of history," Phillips says. "It’s
a story they can tell their grandchildren."
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