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[RC] Tevis coverage - Lucy Chaplin TrumbullI'm totally fried right now, so just a quicky. Haven't managed to read hardly any mail, so this stuff may be repeats or disjointed... Heather and Michel came up to the finish line together and Michel graciously let Heather go in front to take the win. They'd been trading off in minutes all day, so they both did an outstanding job, so it was very classy of him to acknowledge her. A very nice finish, in that regard. The top ten horses all looked GREAT - saw the first 6 coming in last night and they were all totally impressive. Then I went away to upload some photos for a while and came back for the final hour-n-half of finishers - and those horses looked great too. It almost seemed like the further back in the field they were, the cheerier the horses. Barbara White's horse, in particular, was way up - flinging poor tired Barbara (27th? buckle) around on the end of the reins and barging about like she (the horse) hadn't done anything. Barbara, OTOH, looked more like that sort of behaviour was something she could do without at that stage - although finishing with a horse in such a perky state must be thrilling. Jamie Mitchell came in very near the end after Jim had been pulled at Francisco's - luckily they were able to find Jamie a local rider as new sponsor to bring her in - but it was tense waiting for April (mum) for a while there. Last year, poor Jamie got pulled at the finish, but because of a mix up in vet cards, they didn't realise it and she was erroneously awarded a buckle at the awards - only to have it taken away again. Jamie evidently took the error with good grace (kudos to her!) and came back this year to finish the job. Well done! Jamie Fend was also back with unfinished business, after being pulled at Francisco's last year (and she had awful bronchitis). This year she was relieved when Gary decided Tevis made him too sore to repeat wanting to do it again (do we believe him, kids? <g>), so Jamie got to ride his finishing horse from last year, Stormy. She finished looking tired and happy. Apologies to Enrique, btw Laura, for labelling him at being from Chile on the web page - I was making assumptions based on someone telling me there were chilean riders out there. It was 2 am - come on... :) And for the person asking about Electra's breeding - sorry, I don't know more - but *do* know that Peter Toft flew the horse in from Australia two weeks before the event together with his own personal crew. The horse, labelled as being a half-arab is very clearly half-app for people who didn't notice it (you had to be blind - the horse popped up everywhere). Very glad to see Heather's horse winning the BC Haggin Cup (I didn't stay for the Awards this afternoon) - as I say, all the horses looked great at the finish and, of the ones that showed for BC, none really stood above the others in terms of quality - they were *all* just a bunch of quality horses - but Heather's showing abilities really came to the forefront (stop puffing up, MB <g>). After Heather left the judging area to return to her camping area, she ran with the horse up the hill behind the stadium at a pace that most of us would envy *without* having already done a 100 miles and won the ride. She and the horse were both in great shape. My computer is stuffed with about 300+ photos. I'll try and get them up (Patrick is brewing coffee as we speak), but am pretty woozy, generally, so can't make any promises. Brain? what brain? Glad you enjoyed what little I was able to upload - I had some trouble accessing phone lines for any period of time, so had a hard job getting too many pics up in a timely manner. The biggest coups we pulled off (for the webcast) were: * being able to get the Watson's Monument times out at Squaw Valley as soon as we came off the mountain at ~9:00 am - so you guys didn't have to wait until the Robinson Flat times (which typically get delayed due to terrain/technical constraints) to see what was happening. * having a great crew at both Foresthill and Michigan Bluff to connect those two checkpoints and alert the crews that their rider had left MB (~1 hour from FH) so that they could be ready for their arrival. * having internet/laptop at the stadium to update the leaderboard for the whole field for crews waiting for the finishers. We had some database and packet radio hiccups, as expected (the temps were in the high 90s and equipment never seems to think that's a funny joke. Both printers we had in the field stopped working early in the game, meaning that we had to hand-write numbers. This doesn't sound like a lot, but try copying 150 rider #s and times for 7-8 checkpoints... Every year we hopefully get better - and identify yet more holes in the system that we'd like to plug. In reality, there aren't enough hours in the day, or stamina from individuals to be able to perform as well as we'd like. Many thanks to all the volunteers who helped out with the webcast system, including the number uploaders (both radio and internet) and esp. Richard Goodwin who designed the database in his living room, made it work on the day, and trouble-shot the damn thing when it decided to go belly-up a few times during the event at inopportune moments. It's a computer, therefore it will go wrong, right? * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Lucy Chaplin Trumbull elsie AT foothill DOT net Repotted english person in Sierra Foothills, California * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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