Star's First NATRC Ride

Sylvia Beverly

Now that I'm safely back at home, taking my 5 year old, fresh off the race track, only been on the trail 6 months, GREENER THAN GREEN, horse (Star) to the Swanton NATRC ride doesn't seem like such a terrible idea. This weekend though, that's another story.

When I decided to enter the ride, all I could remember about the Swanton ride was big trees whizzing by, beautiful Pacific ocean views, and a waterfall. I've only ridden this ride in the Open division before, and that's pretty much the description most Open riders give. It's a pretty briskly paced ride (to put it mildly).

Since I was taking Star in the CP division, I figured I'd get to mosey along and really enjoy the views . This is kind of what happened because, in my purely unscientific study conducted this weekend, I learned that big surges of adrenaline through your blood stream actually heighten your senses (especially vision as you watch the ground rush toward you). Luckily, as I was talking with Bob Waugh Friday night, I chickened out on the idea of riding alone and asked him if we could ride together (I'd still be out there if I hadn't). He agreed and we timed out together Saturday.

Star was cool as a cucumber until we got to some switchbacks and there were horses above and below us - too confusing! He wanted to go up, down, and sideways. Sideways was a bad choice and one of his rear legs left the trail, luckily the other three legs picked up the slack and we stayed on the trail. Next was a bridge (we've never crossed a bridge before). Bob and Mij bravely led the rookie across and Star followed on his tip-toes after checking with me to make sure that we I reallllly wanted to do this.

We had several miles of uneventful bliss until we came to the (gulp) waterfall. How could I have forgotten how scary that waterfall is? The real problem is the trail that the waterfall drains into and over. Big scary rocks, mud, all that icky stuff horses hate. Star has only crossed nice little Santa Ynez creeks approximately 6 times, so this must have looked impossible to him. (The Novice division has crossed this waterfall for the past 20 years - I could be exaggerating the danger a tish J). After Mij and Bob once again showed us how to do it, Star put his head down and blew on the bad rocks, then levitated himself over the rocks and evil water to the other side (I almost ended up riding double on Mij). This is a fairly narrow trail, so I didn't really enjoy the levitation thing even though Bob said it looked quite athletic (he would use that word a lot over the next two days).

Just as my heart rate was returning to normal (I should have been the one with the heart rate monitor, not Star), a woman ahead of me stops her horse smack in the middle of a narrow trail (why doesn't this stuff happen on fire roads?) and says: "something's wrong with my horse". Something did look wrong : he was pawing the ground and jumping, tossing his head, etc. Puzzling behavior until I felt the first sting and Star started jumping and trying to get away. The woman ahead of me must have been impervious to bee stings because she was still standing there saying "What's wrong with my horse?" I yelled "BEEEEEEES, RUN!!!!!!!" (Larry Bentley would have been proud). We lit out of there as fast as we could leaving behind some really angry bees for the next riders.

We vetted out that afternoon uneventfully.

I have to admit that I laid awake quite a while Saturday night trying out various excuses as to why I couldn't possibly ride out on Sunday. I was pretty sure I'd be riding alone, because Bob Waugh is a nice guy, but NOBODY is THAT nice. I planned to allow him to gracefully sneak out of camp without me and to look brave as I rode out alone (I also made sure my socks didn't have any holes in them and that my legs were shaved - didn't want to gross out the paramedics).

Sunday morning inevitably arrived and none of my excuses sounded plausible in the cold light of day. As I was gulping down some coffee, Bob walked over and asked me if I thought we should try to ride in the front or the back today. I looked at him carefully and he looked reasonably sane, non-delusional, not running a fever, but why in the world would he agree to ride with me on my green horse after yesterday? Then it hit me! ahhhh, pity! I can handle that.

We decided to ride out toward the front since our horses were fast walkers (not to mention one fast levitator). Any of you who know me will be shocked to hear that we made a wrong turn right out of camp and, yes, I was in the lead. Once that error was corrected, we started up a long, steep trail.

I was doing my best to stay "up" out of the saddle in good NATRC style. However, Star, being a former race horse, has different associations with that particular style of riding than a seasoned NATRC horse does and we ended up fish-tailing around and generally causing a big delay on the trail while we got readjusted (once again, narrow trail). Definitely need more uphill training.

More bridges, mud, creeks, and lots of horse levitation. Star and I both learned a lot (mainly that he has an insane owner). We did have totally zen moments on the trail of enjoying the views, the trail and other riders. The P&R crews helped me keep count of how many near death experiences I had along the way (I offered to let a couple of them finish the ride for me, but no takers).

The McCrary's do an awesome job with this ride - sawing, chopping and generally beating the vegetation into submission so that we can ride. The food was superb and 25 years of experience putting on an NATRC ride really shows.

Back to Star. He's out in the field right now with his yearling buddy. When I turned him out he ran and bucked, rolled and generally showed that he was none the worse for his "near death" experiences. I'm sure he told his yearling buddy though: "If they ever put you on the race track, run like the wind, because this trail stuff is really hard!"

Copyright 1999, Sylvia Beverly

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