Bonnet on the Tevis Cup Ride

Bonnet on the Tevis Cup Ride

Shortly after this romantic interlude Bonnet moved to new quarters in Sunland and for us life went on. The next thing we heard, Lona had taken it into her head to ride Bonnet on the Western States 100. She conditioned him and trained him. I thought it was madness, but nobody ever asked me. (Nobody ever asks me.) She and the pony showed up, both of them in great condition because they had been working in the rugged San Gabriel Mountains of Southern California.

The trail ride board of directors had stipulated that each horse had to carry 150 pounds of weight. Lona and her saddle weighed 130 pounds, but nobody cut them any slack. If Bonnet was going to play with the real horses, he was going to have to abide by Real Horse Rules. So he was fitted out with lead weights for his saddle.

I was concerned because much of the Western States ride is made at the trot. You’ve seen people riding English saddles where they bounce up and down while their horse trots. It’s called “posting.” It’s a way of equalizing the load and making things a little easier for the horse. People riding Western saddles don’t post. Instead, they put their weight from side to side as the horse progresses, counterbalancing the motion. It also equalizes the load. But both riding methods have something in common. The rider looks like he’s going to fall off any second.

Many people were concerned about Bonnet. Compared with the trail horses, even the relatively small Arabs, Bonnet looked like a Yorkshire Terrier running with Great Danes. But he was in such great physical condition that a hundred-mile trot only made him horny. He propositioned every mare he could identify along the way, and maybe a few geldings, too. When you’re young, you’re not particular.

The ride ends at the Auburn District Fair Grounds. At 6:00 a.m. certain vets conduct a quick post-ride survey of the animals. bIf they find some horse massively dehydrated, for example, they can do something quickly. Since Joanne was the vet secretary, she had to get up early to make the 6:00 a.m. call with them. She told me that Bonnet was still propositioning the mares. One of the vets commented, “That’s a damn tough pony.” “Damn tough” is a technical term used among veterinarians.

Bonnet lived into his middle twenties. He pulled carts, appeared in parades, and was Lona’s friend and companion during all that time. Several times he won the NTRA (National Trail Riding Association) national open championship.

When he died, Lona sent us an edged-in-black note saying she had lost her friend. And we mourned with her. He was one of the planet’s good guys.

More on Bonnet

More on Bonnet
Copyright Ken Harris 2008

I mentioned before that there are advantages to raising horses on hillsides. They do not grow up, as some rural myths say, with legs shorter on one side than the other. Instead, since no matter where they go, it will be either uphill or downhill, the horses or ponies muscle up in the hindquarters.

And so it was with Bonnet. After six months with us in Auburn, he no longer resembled a Friday Horse. (To refresh your memory, you never wanted to buy a new car built on Fridays because that was the day they cleaned the factory and built cars out of parts that didn’t fit right in on first attempt at assembly Mondays through Thursdays.) All of Bonnet’s horse parts seemed to fit together better than they had when we first got him from Montana. Men no longer laughed when they saw him. We might have even finished 22nd in that show at Stockton, instead of 23rd. .

At that time Joanne and I were heavily involved with the Western States 100 Mile Trail Ride. We had both done the ride before and won our much coveted silver and gold buckles. (To win the buckle you had to ride one horse the roughly 100-mile distance from Tahoe City to Auburn within 24 hours.) Both of us realized that we only needed one belt buckle because we only needed to wear one belt at a time. But we still worked on the ride, clearing and marking trail in the spring to get ready for the summer event. I used to be a drag rider and sweep up lost riders and try to get them in so they could earn buckles. Joanne was a vet’s secretary. We did all this when we were not trimming our ponies’ feet.

During this time we met Lona Sweet and her family from Sunland, California. I don’t know if Lona will ever read this story, but she was a little bitty woman who might have weighed ninety-nine pounds if someone put rocks in her purse. She fell in love with Bonnet and bought him.