Reprinted from Endurance News, October 2009, Ride Managers’ Column, monthly publication of the American Endurance Ride Conference, www.aerc.org, 866-271-2372
It’s a few weeks after the 6th Annual Allegany Shut Up and Ride, and this is the time when we’re typically re-energized and planning for next year’s ride.
But not this year.
This was the year we decided that enough was enough.
It’s been a good run, six excellent rides, well attended for the most part, breaking even most years, with a banner year or two where we not only covered expenses but probably managed to make enough profit to take our good friends out for a nice dinner.
Anyone who thinks ride management is easy, or a huge profit-making proposition for the effort involved has obviously never run a ride. Or run it well. Or they are far smarter than me with a far less-developed duty for worry.
Every year, our goal is to have a safe, well-marked ride, full of laughter and excellent veterinary care, and a course tough enough to earn its name and for people who have completed to feel they’ve earned bragging rights.
It’s become so much more than that.
Memories of squabbles and gorgeous campfires, a sinister joke told repeatedly to someone who just couldn’t get it, Hurricane Katrina (and Ivan and a few others) making a visit the week prior to the ride, beautiful horses heading out on challenging trails, laughter and heated competition, a couple of tears (some joyful, some frustrated), an emergency phone call to an injured rider’s family, many thumbs ups and hugs and way, way too many pieces of surveyor ribbon tied to clothespins.
Like many rides, this one runs on the massive support of those who love our sport – Buck and Donna Shrader, veterans who are there early every year to calm my nerves; my husband, Richard, who plans and measures and clears and marks every inch of the trail; Terry and Dorie Skarbek, who manage to be there every year it is physically possible – every year my heart rejoices when I hear, early and often, Terry’s infectious giggle; our vets, who every year calm my concerns, since I know they are amongst the best in the region, the best in the country; my farrier, who comes every year, tacking on missing shoes, an ordinarily shy guy telling jokes late at night around the campfire, who refuses to take a dime, even for fuel, for his services; and the friends who take pulses, and collect/make/donate awards, record for the vets, and help us check/mark/unmark trail or clean the campsite, put up tents or the billion other tasks required on ride weekend.
But unlike some rides, we rely on our non-horsey friends and family too. We want our endurance friends to ride the course, have fun and laugh, and not work the ride. Which means my Dad and Uncle Pat serve as in-timers every year, a job more daunting for them than others since my Dad doesn’t much like horses and my Uncle Pat is afraid of them. My sister-in-law runs registration, my brother drops everything with his demolition business and drives the water truck, our brother-in-law and sister-in-law prepare the Saturday night meal. My father-in-law, a pastor, comes by to pray over us all, and in my case, I think, to pray for my destination-questionable soul.
The Shut Up and Ride is a family affair to be sure. And not a one of these folks know or care a thing about horses or endurance riding, other than this one event every year.
But at some point, it simply becomes too much to ask. Too many days two hours away from home too many years in a row, too many hey-do-you-think-you-could-possibly favors that will never be repaid.
Any Ride Manager can tell you that it’s hard to go back to the well over and over again.
Add the stresses and work load of building a house, and my husband and I managing each of our hectic businesses, and we knew we were going into this year’s ride a bit tapped and drained.
One too many headaches with the Park, and this year, the final straw was a last-minute charge for Porta-Potties. Anyone who knows me well knows it’s only fitting that this is the hill I would die on. The Porta-Potty hill.
And a frustrated cell phone call to my husband – “We need a break from this, don’t we?”
A relieved sigh as an answer.
But it’s not an easy thing to give up, managing a ride.
Not with riders who are gracious and kind and thankful, and who make me laugh, including one who told me, teary-eyed, that she stuck with the sport because she knew every year she could come back to our ride.
Not with riders and staff who are former or current Ride Managers saying “we know, we know, we know how hard it is.” These are people who truly understand that eventually it’s simply enough.
Not with friends and riders and volunteers saying …
“Is it true …?”
“Are you sure?”
“You’ll change your mind.”
“Can’t we do something to keep it going?”
“But you can’t give it up!”
Whenever I get an email or call or someone stops me at a ride, thinking they’d like to manage a ride, I tell them it is the best and most challenging and rewarding job in the world if you love our sport. And that is the truth.
But even the best jobs require a vacation from time to time.
And so the maps and the folders and the clipboards and the way-too-many leftover t-shirts go in boxes in the attic.
I’m doing my best to think of this like I do when winter approaches in western New York. We’ve worked hard all season long, the horses and us — we need a vacation. Maybe one of the horses is having an issue that is bordering on a problem, maybe one is feeling a bit overworked and tired and less enthused about something he used to love, maybe the notion of packing the trailer one more time for one more trip for one more ride just no longer sounds like fun.
It’s time for a break.
When spring comes (and it always does, although sometimes in June) the horses always seem to be renewed, little owies are miraculously healed, we find ourselves planning and all of a sudden, we are ready to ride again. The enthusiasm is back.
Maybe it will be the same with managing a ride. Maybe we’ll take a little break, find we can’t live without the Shut Up and Ride and we will dust it all off and take the plunge again.
In the meantime, I’ve got a great deal I can make you on surveyor ribbon and clothespins.
Happy trails.