4 Grand!

Saturday April 17 2010

After 13 years, a few trials, many beautiful trails, a lot of knowledge (but never enough), and many, many wonderful friends, I hit the Big 4-0!

4000 AERC endurance miles. (And when i think of all those training miles that got me there...) Pretty good for never owning my own endurance horse.

On Day 1 of the High Desert Classic outside of Fallon, Nevada on Saturday, where I reached my 4000 miles riding Spice, Jerry Zebrack, riding beside me said, "You must be a good rider, riding everybody else's horses."

My reply was, "The more I know, the more I know I don't know."

Horses never stop teaching you, if you listen. Very often, some of them know more than you do.

I've got a ways to go to catch Hall of Famer Dave Rabe and his 47,000+ miles. I figure at my pace I'll get there when I'm 190 years old. It's my new goal!

And now for my Oscar speech: I couldn't have done this without, well, just about everybody. Thanks to: Spice, Raffiq, the great Zayante, my pal Jose, Rhett, Mac, Quickie, Razzie, Odyssey, Quinn, Kon, Fadrika, Riptide, Jazzbo, Charlie, Cloud, Quigley, Oak Hill Kindred Spirit, Redman, Rocket Man, Maggie, and my first finishers long ago, Masrita and Rocky. Thanks to humans Gretchen (owner of Spice!), Steph and John, Jackie, Robert and Melissa, Sue, Nance (owner of Quinn, my Tevis partner!), Ann K, Quenby, Sally, and Shelley. Those are just the immediate thank yous... many more are in the second and third tier... but my time has run out.


(Top photo by Ren Baylor of Baylor & Gore Photography!)
And yes, that's the Raven with me! He's actually 150 miles behind me, so with 3 more completions, he'll get his 4000 miles!