I was informed today that an event that I have volunteered for the last eight years has been cancelled until further notice.  The event was a horse endurance ride.  The horse and rider rode anywhere between 25 and 100 miles in a day.  Our group was set up at different stations and monitored the riders as they rode through the check points.

Back a couple of years ago, you may remember when the government shut down and all the national parks closed.  The park where most of the riders camped at and had showers made available to them at first stated that even though the parks were shut down they would remain open for the event.  Well, the national guard got wind of this and forced everyone out of the campgrounds and this made the ride coordinators upset that the campground management wouldn’t stand their ground.  I can see both points of view but the campground management had no choice but to close the campground otherwise people would get arrested.  But still, the ride management got mad and said that would not be back, but they did.  The following year.  Before the end of the event last year an announcement was made that this may be the last year for this ride and that a decision would be made within a month or so.  I got word yesterday that the ride was not included in this years calendar.

It’s too bad really because I really enjoyed working this event.  The work wasn’t hard and I got to meet a lot of interesting people.  It’s a whole new world these people live in with their fancy horses and their expensive trailers that they lived in during these events.

The above picture was taken a couple of years ago of a young lady and her horse.  She had just finished up with her run and was waiting on the vet to have her horse checked out.  That’s another thing I was so impressed with, they took care of these animals better than they did of themselves.  Last year they had to put one of these majestic horses down.  The rider was told multiple times to slow the animal down but she thought her horse could handle the strain. They just couldn’t get the horse’s heart rate down to a manageable rate.  They rushed the horse to the nearest animal hospital over six hours away where the horse finally had to be put down.

“Live Goes On!”