Mort, Me and the Upper Rio Grande 50 Miler Part 1

Mort and I had struggled through a few more NATRC rides. We had even managed to place.

Those rides were such a frustration to me. My inability to pay attention to instruction or direction kept tripping us up. I would continually make mistakes which would get us nickel and dimed to death by the judges.


Our PR checks were always great. We never had a problem finishing a ride, but we had lots of trouble coming in on time. Not late mind you, early. Much too early.


Mort's travelling trot averaged 17-20 mph. I don't know how this speed stacks up against the endurance elite, but for a quarter horse it was really, really fast. His heart rate was so low and steady he was often checked and rechecked at the required rest stops. We almost always came in just a few points above normal and were back to his low, steady rhythms within five minutes.


So, as was the story of my life, and still is today, my horse was fine. I was the one who kept screwing up our success.

I couldn't keep track of our time and I continually messed up the math of MPH and how many stops we would make within the designated miles. My buckets were always hung in the wrong spot and Mort could untie a safety knot in 2 seconds flat. The judges frowned upon my horse cruising the camp at night and turning as many other horses as possible to come party with him. My surly teen-age attitude didn't help much either.

I was at one of our riding clubs first-of-the-year Sunday shows and visiting with Cindy, one of the adult club members.


She kept looking over Mort with a slightly critical eye and I was gearing up for another "your horse is too thin" lectures. She said, "Have you ever been in an endurance race?"


"I've been on some NATRC rides," I told her.


"I'm talking about a race," Cindy said, "a fifty miler."


"No, I haven't." I could feel my excitement start to rise, but squelched it down hard, I'd been fooled about this endurance thing before.


"You race 50 miles in one day," Cindy continued. "There are regular vet checks and they'll pull your horse if you push too hard, but it's a race. Your horse looks like he's in great condition."


"We could race 50 miles," I told her. "I've already rode him 70 miles in one day and that was just because we were lost."

Cindy gave me a funny look. I couldn't read her, but she kept talking, so I hadn't run her off.


"I'd like to have a riding partner for a race coming up in July. Do you want to come?" she asked me.

"I'll have to ask my parents," I told her, "but I bet I can." My mind was racing as fast as my horse was going to on the 50 miler.

Permission granted, I started to get Mort ready to go. We only had 6 weeks to get ready, but I knew he was already in pretty good shape. We embarked on a conditioning program I made up myself. Part what I had managed to learn on the NATRC rides, part Bonanza, part Walter Farley.

I was up before dawn to take him to "the ditch," a 1/2 mile length of flood control canal with a deep sand base. We ran 2 miles at whatever speed Mort chose. If you asked me what we were doing I'd have told you we were "breezing."

For the last few weeks of school I was on him for a fast trot through Palmer Park as soon as I could get to the barn. On week ends we headed out to the reservoirs or back into the park for as many hours as I could wrangle from home.

We were bareback for most of these rides, it took too much time to get my saddle out to the barn. I figured it would make me tougher. We went cross country often, smashing through scrub oak, climbing shale covered hills, winding our way into deep ravines with no trails to guide us.

Mort loved it. He was in his element when we were on the trail. He would head out in his big strided trot and hold it for as long as I asked him too. He was bold and eager while we were out, willing to jump a log or scramble across soft red rock faces without hesitation. I trusted his judgement so completely I never made him go over an area he refused to cross. I assumed (and to this day I think it's how I managed to not kill me or my horse) he knew better than I did where we could safely go.

I let go of all my thoughts of training and just rode. Often in shorts and a T-shirt, rarely in shoes, I shook loose of the constraints I had put on Mort and myself over the past few years and reveled in the joy of my horse.

We became lean as a pair of gray hounds and I had a hard time getting Mort to break into more than a light sweat no matter how much ground we covered or how many hills we tackled.

Cindy sent me entry forms, releases and suggestions on what to wear and what to bring on the ride.

Finally, finally, the week of our ride arrived.