2026 Old Selam Day 3 - Riding with the famous Two Step Betty LTH

September 6 2026

Neither Willie nor I were tempted to do a 50 today (much less the 100 that our pasture mate DWA Papillon and Connie were attempting), so we slept in and saddled up for the LD.

I gave Willie a good walk-about warm up for 15 minutes before the start, and scouted out our competition. Not to see who we could beat, but to see who we might ride with, or, any hot horses we might avoid, as I just wanted, as always, an easy fun ride with no Rocket Pony beneath me to have to apply brakes to for 25 miles.

Nobody looked to be in a big rush anyway, with half the 12 starters standing around talking. Willie was a bit amped, but completely controllable, though I was glad I stuck with his Kemberwick bit and not his jaquima halter sidepull. On our walkabout we met Two Step Betty LTH with Jessica aboard; Betty pinned her ears at Willie, and Jessica laughed. “She hates everybody.”

And once the trail was open, a couple of riders took off, and we ended up walking out beside Betty and Jessica (with plenty of space in between). Betty wasn’t in a big hurry, just off on another day of endurance business, and Willie wasn’t in a big hurry, so we sort of headed out together. Once we crossed the creek and the road and started out on a two-track logging road, Betty was trotting ahead of us and going exactly the pace I wanted for Willie, which he was completely agreeable to. He had his head bowed to his chest, looking all macho and powerful, but he wasn’t pulling on the reins at all. I think Phinneas (RIP) taught Willie to do this, because it makes a horse look like a magnificent racehorse galloping on the track. 

Jessica said we could try riding with Betty, I said we’ll stay back, and if Betty gets mad, we will let you go ahead! We gave Betty plenty of space, which one should do anyway, and not ride up another horse’s butt, for so many reasons. I’m going to write an article on that one day, called “Get Off My A$$.”

But Betty was tolerating us, and our two horses paced really well together. Jessica is a rather amazing human being, not only for being an ICU nurse, but for being a heart transplant patient. For all she’s been through, she’s full of “joy, adventure, and gratitude.” (Read her story https://www.fiacardiac.org/updates/back-in-the-saddle-with-a-new-heart here.)

And Two Step Betty is her own story, a National Show Horse who was a rescue by Vera Kalila’s Love This Horse Equine Rescue in Tehachapi, California. Vera said about Betty in 2024: “The amazing thing about Betty is that she has been rejected and dumped so many times in her life. People misunderstand this mare. She is sweet to the core and has a heart. She loves being out on the trail… We rescued Betty at a loose horse auction in Billings, MT.”

Jessica and her mom Veronica adopted Betty, and despite Betty’s quirks (like hating all horses, even her pasture mates), Jessica loves her and has given Betty a home for life.

And despite her dislike of other horses, Betty not only tolerated Willie, but allowed him to trot up almost beside her at times. She pinned her ears spectacularly, but she sometimes let Willie stay there! 

Betty likes Willie close

Betty does not like Willie close

By the time we finished loop one and strolled into camp, our horses were already pulsed down to the required 60 bpm. During the vet check, Willie ate the entire 40 minutes, maybe the best eating he’d ever done before. 

Willie got to wear his jaquima halter side pull on loop 2. We met up with Jessica and Betty and headed out on our last loop. He could have worn it on loop 1, but I never know if I’m going to need powerful brakes or not, and if you leave camp without the bridle you need, well… good luck!

Neither Willie nor Betty drank on the first 16 mile loop (that’s normal for Willie), but on the second loop they drank from every water trough. After Betty took a good drink from the first trough, Jessica broke off and gave Betty a bite of carrot. Willie heard that Carrot Snap, and kind of horned his way over to Jessica’s saddle bag, innocently blinking his big brown eyes, so he mooched a carrot bite too. After every water trough thereafter, Willie sidled his way over to Jessica, expecting a treat from her! (Which she gave!)

Our horses easily cruised the 9 miles of loop 2, stopping only twice when we came across first one Renegade boot that had come off a horse, and then the other boot! We each rescued and carried a stinky boot in with us to the finish line.

With no racing, just an easy calm ride, we finished up in third and fourth. (That was Betty’s third day of LDs.) Willie and I showed for Best Condition, because we could, and Willie ended up with High Vet Score!

It was another super fun Old Selam ride, great trails, cool weather (!!!), and good peeps. It’s put on by our local SWITnDR club (SouthWest Idaho Trail and Distance Riders). I posted thanks on my FB page, but it all bears repeating here:

I know I will forget somebody, but, THANK YOU 😍 to all the SWITnDR (SouthWest Idaho Trail and Distance Riders) volunteers, before during and after the 3-day ride near Idaho City (with a 100 on day 3!), who helped put on this club ride. I hardly saw ride manager Debbie and trail marking Linda the whole weekend because they were constantly out on trail. Thank you to all who came out the week(s) before, and after, for marking and unmarking trail, and for those who came out for a day or the whole weekend for timing or pulsing, thank you too! Some of you I only got to say Hi to. Thanks Ann for your homemade cookies for us 'special' people 😀. Water troughs were at just the right places all over the trails (John and Carl I’m talking at you). Thank you Cini for being a member of our club and letting us have Ridecamp on your family’s property again! Thanks to Regina and to the vets, Robert and Cassie and we recruited and addicted a new vet Mikaela!

Also thanks to XG Smokehouse from Nampa who made the trip out for the weekend, their food is yummy and they worked tirelessly to keep us hungry monsters fed.

And thanks to Steve Bradley for taking the time to come out and stay and shoot all 3 days of the ride. And don’t forget the entertaining Samuel Anderson from the Old Idaho Penitentiary who came again to tell the story of our ride namesake Old Selam and a couple of other famous Idaho horses and outlaws on Saturday (check out their Behind Gray Walls podcast), and Cowgirl Poet Kathy Moss who entertained us with her poetry Sunday morning.

2026 Old Selam Day 1: Riding with my Hero!

 

September 4 2026

I’d planned to ride Willie on all 3 days of LDs at the Old Selam Pioneer ride. It’s still one of mine and Willie’s favorite rides ever, in the Boise National Forest, on fabulous trails of rolling soft logging roads.

We didn’t train *super* hard ahead of time, but Willie was plenty fit enough for LDs, and we’d have fun riding all 3 days. Horses get better and stronger on the third day in a row, right?

After I vetted in on Thursday for Day 1, my Endurance mentor/hero Suzy Hayes, said, “Don’t you want to ride the 50 on Day 1 with me and Tru? We won’t be going fast and we won’t be going slow.”

First I laughed. Willie and I got our 50 in for the year at City of Rocks. But once it got in my head, it didn’t go away. I’ve never ever gotten to ride with Suzy and finally after all these years, here was the opportunity! This is Suzy Hayes, you know, over 28,000 miles, with one horse in the Hall of Fame in 2011, Kootenai Zizzero, and Pard’ners Award with the same horse in 2007, winner of the Big Horn 100 in 2020 just six weeks after a horse wreck where she broke 10 ribs, fractured two vertebrae, punctured a lung and lacerated her liver, and spent five days in the ICU and 10 more days in the hospital. Yes, that Suzy Hayes! Didn’t take me long to change my mind and my plans, and I told Willie about it, and he was all in. (After an extra bucket of carrots.)

The rather unusual forecast for Old Selam this year was so thrilling, cooler weather and chances of rain! 

I don’t like saddling up in the rain - it rained at night - but I didn’t have to. The rain let up when I woke early to get ready, and we carried rain jackets for the ride.

Trail for the 50s opened at 7 AM, and Suzy and I let everyone go ahead of us. Tru is a rescue horse for Suzy, and she’s bringing him along carefully. There’s always something to learn, from each other, and Suzy and Tru are still in this phase. He wasn’t super experienced, with only 2 completed 50s and a CTR under his girth. 

I was sure hoping Willie was going to set a good example for him, with a calm start. He was wound up as we left camp, but when he saw that Tru wasn’t interested in shenanigans, they both started down the trail trotting like the professionals they could be.

The two moved through the Boise forest, up and down the rolling foothills on the soft two-track logging roads, at times riding above the clouds/fog over the valley, keeping our eyes peeled for moose (we saw none). Sometimes we talked, sometimes we didn’t. Suzy has always been generous with any kind of endurance answers to questions you might ask. She’s been particularly helpful to me and Willie about feeding.

Tru mostly set the pace, but Willie took the lead now and then. He always likes to size up his companions. Are they nice? Will they maybe let him be the boss? He’ll trot close beside and turn his head to his companion, and back off if he or she says so, but Tru kind of ignored Willie, so Willie didn’t have to prove anything. (Or have anything proved to him.) 

Only 10 started the 50, and we started and stayed in the back, only passing Jamethiel and her mare Tarma on the first loop, though we were moving steadily along.

Neither of our horses drank on the first 25-mile loop, but it was a cool morning (YAY!!!), and they pulsed down as soon as they came into camp for the hour hold.

Loop two was a bit slower, and we rode much of it with Shayne from Montana and her horse Major Macs Dragon. Rain started in the middle of the second loop, but it just felt good, and the green forest smelled good and looked so happy. The ground soaked up the rain so well (and it had soaked up the previous two nights’ rains) there was only one place that was getting a little slick as we came into camp for the finish.

Alas, Tru was lame in the hind end at his final trot-out, and later Suzy and vet Robert saw an unusual lump on his hock which will need investigating. Willie ended up with the turtle award, a nice little shot glass which he noted would not hold a carrot. No matter, he got plenty when he was finished!

We did show for Best Condition, because we could (though I’m a featherweight, so not a big chance, and the winner, Sanoma Blakeley, was an hour ahead of us), and because I really like the vet to watch Willie trot out an hour later, to see how he *really* looks. If the vet sees something, I want to know. Willie sometimes  trots out with what vet Robert calls a “Standardbred Wiggle”, and Connie got a video of us, so I know what he’s talking about! 

Willie was tired enough that we decided to sit out Day 2’s LD ride. So he got to hang out with his two buddies, DWA Barack (our weekend babysitter) and DWA Papillon, who would be doing the 100 with Connie on day 3!

Top photo by Steve Bradley!

Hillbillie Willie’s DECADE TEAM Ride!

June 9 2026

This is Part II .

Part I is here.

Day 2 City of Rocks:

After I vetted Willie in on Friday, I found out Erin was riding Ivan on the 50. IVAN!!! Many of us lust after Ivan, the 17-hand gorgeous chestnut hunk of 1/2 Akhal-teke, 1/4 Dutch harness horse and 1/4 Arabian. Many of us threaten to load him up in our trailers after the rides. When Erin agreed to try riding with us I was thrilled! I figured we’d match pace pretty well. And I’d get to ride with Ivan! (And Erin.)

Erin said, “Ivan just likes to be adored.” Well no problem there, because Willie becomes instant BFs with most anybody he rides with, and from the start, he did indeed adore Ivan.

And so it was that we started out relaxed on a loose rein at 7 AM the next morning. Ivan was so calm it rubbed off on Willie. Nothing to get excited about, just a 50 mile ride ahead of us. The thunderstorm forecast was completely gone and replaced with partly cloudy skies and 65* temperature. Perfect! And it was rather odd, being on the shorter horse for once!

Julie Bittick joined us for the first half of the first loop on her friend’s Almurath SFF, doing their first 50 together. Julie’s kind of a badass, she rode in and finished the Gaucho Derby in Argentina in February, and she’s going to ride the Quilty in Australia in July.

The original plan for the 25-mile loop 1 was a new trail down from the top of North Fork Circle Creek, down the back way into Castle Rocks State Park, which would cut off at least one way of that 5-mile straight road to Castle Rocks. Alas, at the last minute, we were told we couldn’t use that trail, so, after riding up into and through City of Rocks National Reserve, we had to do that 5 entire miles of road, each way. But with the long strides of Ivan and Willie, those ten miles were a nothing burger. When Ivan upshifted to his big trot, Willie set down into his racing pace, which gobbled up that road in no time. 

The loop through Castle Rocks State Park took us up almost into low hanging clouds over Cache Peak. It was cool enough to slip on my extra rain jacket!

After a vet check back in camp at 5500 feet, where Willie’s pulse dropped to at least 44, the second 25-mile loop took us back up into City of Rocks, all the way to Indian Grove at the top at 7500 feet. 

Though the mountains and the area around Almo were unseasonably dry, in the higher elevations there’s still some nice grass along the trails. Normally Willie is all business on a ride, but he copied Ivan and devoured what grass he could, all day long.

Creeks were dry, (no snow pack from the warm winter; only the one creek in Castle Rocks State Park had any water), but ride management (John and Carl!) put out ample water tubs, and the three troughs fed by natural springs up top were delicious for the horses (and for filling water bottles).

Descending from Indian Grove on North Fork Circle Creek trail, Erin the badass got off Ivan and ran the several miles down the mountain. I am not a badass, so I stayed on Willie, who was extraordinarily sure-footed. Going over some tricky rocky sections of the trail, instead of rushing and stumbling along to keep up with Ivan ahead, he would stop, put his head down, study where to put his feet, take a few steps, stop, and look carefully again before placing his feet thoughtfully. What a smart Standardbred! 

I was able to open most of the gates on Willie, who’s such a good ranch horse, unless the chain was so low on the gate I couldn’t reach it. Erin got off to get a couple of those gates, and Ivan is so tall that unless there was something to stand on, she had to use her hands to lift her foot high enough to reach the stirrup to mount!

Both of us riding rather tall horses, we often had to duck flat on our horses’ backs as we went under some tree branches hanging over the trail. On the Boxtop trail as we trotted through a grove of trees, I must have glanced down at something and then got a WHACK on the front of my helmet so hard it snapped my neck back and almost knocked me backwards off Willie. That’s a PSA Public Service Announcement to WEAR A HELMET! Had I not had a helmet on, it would have whacked me square in the forehead and would have knocked me out, not to mention landing on my head on the trail.

All throughout the day I was amazed at what magnificent athletes these endurance horses are. Ivan and Willie traded off leading, and we just let them set the pace. I didn’t ask Willie to trot up hills, he just did it because he could and because he wanted to. We kept up our easy pace all day and finished in 10th and 11th, and once the vet gave Willie the final thumbs up…

We got our Decade Team!!!!!

There are so many people to thank for this and for this year’s ride, and if I miss you, consider yourself thanked!

Thank you to Hillbillie Willie!!!!!! He’s an amazing horse, fun, smart, hilarious, sometimes naughty, always entertaining.

Thank you to Steph Teeter for giving me this horse when she retired from Endurance and horses!!!!! Thank you to Nance Worman and Debbie Johnston for taking this epic ride on again as managers. Thanks to Regina Rose for hauling us there, and Connie Holloway for her support and for supplying DWA Barack, Willie’s BBFF as a traveling companion. Thanks Erin Hafla and IVAN for super fun company on our 50-mile ride! And Julie Bittick too who rode with us on the first loop. Thanks Veronica Stanley for the saddle fitting, and thanks to Cat for shooting Day 2 so I could ride!

As far as we Standie people can figure, Willie’s just the second Standardbred in endurance to achieve Decade Team status. Of course, there aren’t that many Standardbreds doing the sport, which is a shame, because they’re a super versatile breed. And if they’ve raced, they come with a solid fitness foundation.

*Cat Cook photo up top

Connie Holloway photo of Willie opening a gate*

Standardbreds rock !!!

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Hillbillie Willie’s Decade Team Quest Part I: What could possibly go wrong beforehand

Friday June 5 2026

AERC’s “Decade Team” recognizes those equine and rider teams who completed at least one endurance ride (50 miles or more) each year for 10 years. 

I’ve pretty much accomplished the main endurance riding goals I’ve had over 20+ years. Tevis Cup - check. Virginia City 100 - check. Ridden thousands of miles in beautiful country with good company - check. Even gotten a couple of Best Conditions - check. The only thing left I’d really like to accomplish would be a Decade Team. In all my years of catch riding, I got so close on one horse owned by Steph Teeter, 9 years on the best ever Jose Viola.

This is Willie’s 10th year in endurance riding. Could we actually really do it together????

I tried not to think about it too hard, and I wanted to get it over with early in the season, because, the longer you wait, the more your odds go against. There’s likely a bad fire season is coming up, with much of the West in a drought and everything already so terribly dry. When smoke is bad I won’t train, and rides might even get cancelled because of fires. Not to mention the skyrocketing gas prices with no end in sight.

So I set my sights on the Antelope Island ride April 18-19. Beautiful ride, the perfect terrain for Willie’s first ride of the season.

What could possibly go wrong?

Well, here’s what:

April 18-19 - Antelope Island ride was cancelled! With much of the West having a terribly warm winter with little snow, or late snow that melted quickly and warmed right back up - the gnat hatch on the island came weeks early. That would have made conditions miserable for humans and horses, so ride manager Jeff wisely postponed the ride till October. (The week before the Antelope horse ride, the human Buffalo Run was also cancelled.)

May 4 - Willie and I rode over rattlesnake!!! Trotting along a home trail made narrow by tall golden cheatgrass, we passed over it before I even noticed it. It was a smaller one, and I have no idea if we hit it or if it struck after Willie zoomed by; I just know my heart was in my throat. This has been a big snake year; I’ve seen more diverse snakes in April and May than I’ve seen most entire years.

May 10 - Willie stepped on my foot. Made me howl! Normally he’s very aware and careful to never step on me, but the grass was tall and I had one foot back as I stretched forward with the other foot, and he never saw my poor foot that he walked on. Luckily nothing broken, I just hobbled around for a few days.

May 19 - I STEPPED ON A RATTLESNAKE!!!!! I stepped under the hay tarp before I looked, and when I lifted the tarp up, my foot was on a curled up snoozing rattlesnake! I don’t know who was more startled. I screamed, jumped backwards and fell down and smacked my head on a (luckily) plastic bin. I laid there shaking while the snake slowly unwound and stretched out and meandered underneath another tarp. It was almost 3 feet long. The only reason I wasn’t bitten was because the snake was snoozing and it wasn’t my time. (Also, I didn’t knock myself out or give myself a concussion from hitting my head.)

May 24 - Sunday we arrived at Ridecamp at City of Rocks (we arrive early so Connie and I can start hiking and marking trails in the parks), just missing a gnarly looking thunderstorm to the north of us. Also, there was a 70% chance of rain and thunderstorms for Saturday when Willie and I would be riding our 50! And you know me, I am terrified of lightning.

May 25 - Monday while out riding Willie on the park trails with Connie on DWA Papillon, we saw the blow-up of the Summit Creek fire (started by the previous day’s lightning storm) just over the mountain from Ridecamp. (See top pic, smoke above Willie's head, that's when it first started.) Fortunately the wind was blowing it away from us, but we’d be watching that all week.

May 28 - Thursday a horse got loose in Ridecamp, galloped through our pasture fence and took it down, and all 4 of our horses got out. Luckily it was during the afternoon when many people were around, so they were able to help me surround and catch our herd before they went far, and luckily nobody got hurt.

And so….. we finally made it to Saturday morning, Day 2, the start of our 50 mile ride! 

See Part 2 is here.