Tevis Comes to Us!

The Tevis Cup. 

If you are an equestrian, you have the image of lean Arabian horses and their riders, scrambling up Cougar Rock.   Or the adrenaline rush of starting from  Robie Equestrian Park in the dark.   

100 miles.  24 hours.   The winner will usually finish in under 15 hours.   It's not enough to "finish", your horse must finish and be "fit to continue".   Every horse and rider pair that finishes in 24 hours and is fit to continue gets a coveted Tevis Cup belt buckle.

But it's not just the miles.  Temperatures will range from 40-120 degrees F.   It's a brutal, and beautiful ride.  From the Tevis Ride website:  Beginning at the Robie Equestrian Park (elevation 7,000 feet), south of Truckee, California, the trail descends gradually approximately nine miles to the Truckee River at the Midway Crossing on Highway 89. The trail takes a route through Squaw Valley, the U.S. Olympic training facility and site of the 1960 Winter Olympics, and ascends from the valley floor (elevation 6,200 feet) to Emigrant Pass near Watson's Monument (elevation 8,750 feet), a climb of 2,550 vertical feet in 4½ miles. From the pass, following the trail once used by gold and silver miners during the 1850s and rediscovered by Robert Montgomery Watson in 1929, riders will travel west, ascending another 15,540 feet and descending approximately 22,970 feet before reaching the century-old town of Auburn via the traditional route through Robinson Flat, Last Chance, Deadwood, Michigan Bluff, Foresthill, and Francisco's.

Except this year, they won't be starting from Robie.   Thanks to COVID-19, the ride was canceled.   All the work, all the conditioning...the disappointment.  And the loss of an annual fundraiser for the trail.    

So it went virtual, and the ride opened to anyone who was willing to try to ride 100 miles in 100 days as a one horse, one rider pair.  There's even a non-riding division:  you can walk, bike, swim, kayak, hike, crawl - if you are on your own power, you can sign up.

And what do you know, I have a little black horse I bought to do distance riding with.   Who knew he'd end up Tevis material?

At our starting line!

We are bib # 262

100 miles in 100 days doesn't sound hard.  Mile a day, right?   Then factor in weather, things like vet appointments, farrier days, days I simply can't find the time to ride, and the horse needs days off to just be a horse.   Now it means get all the distance we can every time we ride.

14 days in, and the weather has been brutal.   Hot, steamy, foggy, buggy.   I can't remember a time I didn't feel...swampy.   Deuce isn't in shape to run, so we do a lot of walks with bits of jogging and in the heat, we are aiming for a mile and a half every ride.   It doesn't seem like a lot even then...until you are slapping at deer flies with sweat rolling off your face, and your horse is constantly shaking himself to get rid of all the bugs on him, and you rode through a spiderweb and is that a spider crawling up your back now...   But we do all this slow work now, and by the time the weather cools off - we should be fitter and ready to ride harder.  The days will get shorter, the rides will get longer.   We'll meet friends to ride together.   

It's just been plain sticky, even at 7am

What will we get?   A t shirt and a sticker.   But by gods - I will wear that t shirt with pride!   I will be able to say we finished the Tevis ride in 2020.   And I perused the Tevis online store...there's a flask and a wine  sippy cup.  It's like they've met my horse!

I would be lying to say I'm not excited.   I'm disappointed for all the people who planned to compete on the actual trail, but hey, this is my chance and I'm using it!   I've had big fun with the vet and farrier "Make sure he's comfortable, he's entered in the Tevis ride this year!" and the looks I get with my pudgy, out of shape horse.   Tevis material, indeed.

The organizers have set things up to be fun for us.  I log in my miles (honor system) and I see a dot on the map where I'd be on the trail.   At certain points, I earn a "trophy" and get a view of the actual trail for that point.   They've set up a FaceBook group for all of us competitors, and it's amazing.  People from all over the world, posting photos of their trails, their mounts, videos of their trail rides.  People who entered as non riders, but are going to walk miniature horses, people riding draft horses.   Hikers, bikers, moms who ride horses along side their kids on bikes, doing the trail together.   The woman who lives in the eastern US on her kayak she named Buttercup, cheering on her friends riding their horses on the west coast.    The endurance riders who are still doing training and conditioning, hoping for their next ride, and the people who are starting young horses, or rehabbing old horses (or themselves!) and only riding a slow mile here and there, quietly plugging away at those 100 miles.   

Our progress to date

And the sad posts - the woman who had a happy 10 mile ride one day, only to have her horse colic the next day and not make it.  She's now walking alongside her young horse to get him used to the trails.  There's been a few rider mishaps and some entrants are now sorting out how to do things like ride with a hand in a cast.  

No matter if you have a ton of trails and a fit horse, or if you only have a small round pen and a horse just started under saddle, everyone gets encouraged.   We are all doing a different ride, and that's ok.  It's a great group, some of the photos are silly, and there's now a thing with creating your own "Cougar Rock" to post when you pass that mile marker.   

So onward, little Deuce!   We have miles to cover - one slow stroll at a time!  We will update you as we go!

Happy Trails!