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[RC] How did you get started? - Dawn Simas
Instead of being surprised when I discovered endurance, I guess I was surprised at other disciplines because I was involved in endurance since.... well...since before I was born. My Mom met my Dad on Tevis. It was 1960 or '61 and a horse had gone over a cliff. My Dad was cowboying in Auburn and they called him to help. He climbed down and used ropes to stablize the horse if he thrashed on the ledge. Mom was 20 years old and she'd climb down with sandwiches and coffee and he stayed with that horse overnight. I was born in 1962 in Auburn, CA, near Robie Pt. My Mom rode with Pat & Donna Fitzgerald, Wendel Robie, Paige Harper, Potato Richardson, Dru Barner, Pat Plankers, Ellen Waddell, Jack & Betty Veal, Gib & Lila Ketcherside, Smokey Killen and Diane Clagett. Charlie Barrieau lived with us for a while (my childhood is well documented by his photos with his poodle, Shoes). I would ride with Mom and these folks on my ponies. My half welsh/half arab was a runaway, and I would cling for dear life as we'd charge along the railroad tracks to access the Tevis trail from our house on Indian Hill Rd. Mom would just laugh and said I stuck to that mare like a "burr on a wool sock". While Mom was riding rides in the late 60's, I would hang out with the vets: Bruce Branscomb, Dick Chance, Todd Nelson, Hank Cook, Kerry Ridgeway. These were my surrogate dads... :) I remember the day at Squaw Valley when Gordy Ansleigh decided to run the Tevis that year and people thought he was crazy. I remember the time my Mom picked up Hal Hall as a *junior* on the 1970 Tevis when he lost his sponsor. I remember people riding in jeans with panty hose underneath, some sewed leather elbow patches on the calves of their jeans. Everything was leather or denim, except maybe the egg crate foam pads under english saddles. I remember driving from Soda Springs to Robinson Flat on the dirt road that took several hours in a caravan with all the other crews on a pilgrimage of dust covered rigs resembling a pioneer wagon train (and the riders thought the trail was dusty). I remember rides that are gone like Drakes Bay, Cow Mtn, Blue...Blue something... My Grandpa ran the Tevis "Pointed Rocks" checkpoint at 92 miles for 22 years. I grew up crewing Mom on rides and working Tevis as a volunteer. I remember learning as a child that the earth rotates because the stars move through the sky when you are out all night and look up, and lo and behold, they weren't where they were earlier that night... My Grandma had the little red barn built at the Auburn Fairgrounds and I would sell bullion and coffee and cocoa to crews and riders, it made me feel important as an 8 year old. I was truly blessed to be born and raised by the pioneers of this sport. For me, it's rewards are not in having a horse that wins or BC's. It's in the conditioning miles of bonding with my horse, and in the social aspect of the people that countless hours are spent with on and off the trail. :) Dawn
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