More 20 Mule Stories

[Steve Shaw <sshaw@pacbell.net>]

So a mule man was chef d' chicken at the Twenty Mule Team Endurance FEI
Competition. Somewhat appropriate isn't it?

At the start of the race we all saw a large dark horse lurching through
the greasewood and a rider pitching off into the desert. The horse
didn't charge off with the rest of the pack at the start but
surprisingly stayed closed to the downed rider. As the dust cleared
there was Lari Shae crumpled in the sand. She was grasping her side and
breathless. (Lari breathless?) She had landed on her head and side
squishing her water bottles around her waist  and squashing the neck of
one bottle flat. That was what broke or bruised a couple of ribs. Her
helmet had plowed into the sand in the vicinity of the evidence of an
earlier nervous horse and that was evidenced by the horse apples
attached to and stuck into the vents of her helmet. We all got quite a
laugh out of that later, though Lari said it still hurts too much to
laugh.

All the vets were huddled around Lari as we led her horse back to the
trailer and we were untacking it when we heard Lari shout in the
distance " Don't take off the saddle! Grab the Motrin in the pouch!"
"Ouch"

She shouldn't have been shouting. We all thought she was going to start
any ways and left for the Vet check. Twenty minutes later when she
couldn't get up on that tall horse (or was it a short Lari?) she
reconsidered and put the horse away. I will admit that she sure has
gumption as I later saw her at all of the vet checks throughout the day
and night, crewing for the Brazilian in the FEI ride. That Brazil rider
by the way finished in the top ten I believe, in a long, tough event.

Next story, The Dog Fights.

Steve