Re: RC: RE: Sponsors for first time riders

[Rides 2 Far <rides2far@juno.com>]

>> I hear Angie has a few hidden away in the caves on Pigeon Mountain.

O.K. I'll admit it, I *sorta* did it ONCE.  Actually, they weren't
recruits or I wouldn't have done it.  What happened was there was a young
lady I wanted to recruit.  She was very athletic, looked like she'd love
endurance, but was presently riding Walking Horses in field trials.  She
took in boarders at her barn and had a trio of very rich females who had
a very high opinion of their horses and their abilities, and tended to
talk down to my prospective recruit.  

One weekend they decided they wanted to go on a trail ride and offered to
pay the prospective recruit to haul their TB cross jumpers (which they
had paid vast amounts of money for to somebody in Atlanta who saw them
coming from a mile away) there.  Anyway, I told the prospect that if she
would come we'd bring her an endurance horse and meet her there.

So, we all show up and it's February.  Their horses were big and body
clipped.  Ours were little furry Arabs.  I had told my recruit to wear
her biking pants and we'd take care of the rest.  We loaned her some half
chaps and a helmet and she looked like us.  We showed them a map and
said, "You follow the orange markers to the falls, and have your picnic,
then come back.  We'll meet you back here."  Their leader said, "Where
are *you* going?"  We showed her the map and said, we're going the same
way 5 miles, then to the top of the mountain, then doing a 10 mile loop
on top and will come back down the other trail...about 23 miles".

 She said, "We want to do that too".  It was obvious she thought anything
our scraggly little midgets could do they could do better.  I said, "Tell
ya what, we're heading out the same way. Just go with us awhile and see
if you want to keep going".  We started out walking the first mile and
her horse was prancing along beside my horse as he walked.  She looked at
me smuggly and said, "He can do this all day".  I just smiled.  After 15
minutes we took off.  We had 3 GOOD horses and they were REALLY trotting.
 I mean, BIG trot.  My recruits eyes were about to pop out of her head
but she was smiling ear to ear.  We trotted like that for about a mile
and when we came to a place where the trail turned off the dirt road we
stopped and looked back.  No sign of the jumping horses.  We stood around
awhile and finally they came galloping around the curve.  The looks on
their faces were priceless.  The leader was absolutely out of breath and
looked shell shocked.  She was panting and trying to talk.  She said,
"Your horses are TROTTING, >pant pant< and our horses are GALLOPING!
>pant pant< WE CAN'T DO THIS!"  I smiled and said, fine, we'll see you at
the trailer.  We did a really fast 23 miles (the weather was perfect) and
got back to the trailer about when they did.  They could not take their
eyes off our hroses.  They walked around and around them. I don't know if
they were looking for the jet engines or waiting for them to show signs
of exhaustion.  The recruit said they drilled her the whole way home,
"Did you run the whole 
thing?"  "No, we trotted".   Now, if I'd been the sort of person 
I'm warning people about, I'd have talked them into trying the 23 mile
loop.  But then, unlike Bob's neighborhood, it's too darned rocky around
here to dig graves! 

Angie
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