By Heidi Dahms Foster
In this issue of Prescott Dog, we’ve gone to the horses. In our Man Against Horse cover story we mentioned that the 50-mile race included three horses that completed the Tevis Cup 100-mile race in the Sierra Nevada mountains this past summer. An additional horse made it to mile 92 before having to pull.
The historic Tevis Cup is considered the race by which all top equine endurance races are measured. Riders and horses in 24 hours navigate some of the roughest trails and toughest conditions imaginable. This requires starting in the dark and ending in the dark.
Only slightly over 50 percent of entrants complete the race each year – some of the horses are deemed unfit to continue by careful race veterinarians, and sometimes the riders are unable to continue due to injury, sickness, or just plain fatigue.
Tevis Cup Magic: Taking on the world’s toughest 100 mile endurance ride is a short story about one rider’s 2009 effort that gives the reader an excellent glimpse of what it’s like to conquer this amazing challenge. Author Merri Melde is an experienced endurance rider who before her Tevis ride had actually finished a couple of 100-mile rides. She never thought she would have the opportunity to ride Tevis until a friend offered the loan of a wonderful horse and promised to ride with her.
Merri gives an honest portrayal of the Tevis trail. Horse lovers will “get” her fears, her appreciation of the amazing horse that took her the 100 miles to the finish line, and her pure exhilaration at completing the ride. Non-riders who are just plain horse lovers might determine that some folks just live on another plane.
A few of the impressions the readers will come away with are that the Tevis Cup ride, despite taking place in some truly remote country, is sometimes a bit crowded. Some parts of the trail are so narrow that there is no place for horses to pass, and a good deal of the time is spent eating the dust (Melde describes the dust as one of the true trials of the ride throughout) of the horses in front. Parts of the ride, ascending and descending thousands of feet on rocky and narrow trails, often in the dark, through rivers and at one point over a swinging bridge, are downright hair-raising.
Melde’s mount for the trail was Quinn, a seasoned endurance horse that was in top condition for such a challenge. Quinn, despite his penchant for stumbling on rocks when he wasn’t paying attention, gained her utmost admiration as he seemed to become more animated and powerful through the hours rather than getting tired and lagging.
“There are no words to aptly describe him,” Melde said. “He was never not energetic. Amazingly, he got stronger as the day went on. The power that was coming up those legs, pounding over mile after mile after mile of challenging and demanding trail, was simply astounding.”
Melde’s descriptive portrayal includes a heart wrenching incident in 2009 in which a rider’s horse slipped off the trail and sustained a fatal head injury, something that is extremely rare despite the ride’s difficulty. It was a solemn reminder that even with the utmost preparation, and the best riders and horses, anything can happen.
Melde will take you right into the ride with her account. You’ll taste the dust, feel her fatigue and her fears, celebrate every small victory along the way, and above all, appreciate the wonderful bond of rider and horse.
Purchase Tevis Cup Magic: Taking on the world’s toughest 100 mile endurance ride on Amazon.com.
