Texas – The Houston Chronicle carried a story on January 28, 2001 by Rogayle Franklin about a trail ride in the East Texas forests:

An early-morning drizzle softens and blurs the chaotic image of 60 horses and riders at the edge of the woods in Angelina National Forest near Jasper. Eager mares, geldings and stallions paw the sandy ground, ready for the trail riders' competition to begin. A shrill whinny splits the air. Another horse answers, then another. Riders' gloved hands take a tighter grip on damp reins. It is all some can do to hold their mounts back. The horses are in good physical condition, trained and eager to compete.

What's about to begin is not a race but a timed event that pairs rider and horse against the challenges found in a wilderness, and helps to preserve the Western skill of trail riding. Each horse and each rider starts with 100 points. The ones with the most points at the end of the two-day North American Trail Riders Competition win.

The ride begins with the first horse and rider loping into the thick woods. At 15-second intervals other horses and riders take off. Fewer than half of these are gone when shouts, like blows, punch through the haze: "Rider down! Rider down!" The news travels quickly that a horse has reared and bucked off its rider. The woman landed on her head and shoulder after being thrown over the horse's head.

Joan Richardson, rules interpreter, grimaces sympathetically. "The horses get so excited when they start, sometimes a rider gets tossed." When the volunteer medical attendants know the condition of the thrown rider and horse, the information will be radioed to designated medical checkpoints ahead on the trail.

Each rider carries a map of the woods with a designated route. Experienced riders and horses in the open divisions ride more than 50 miles in two days. Novice riders or experienced riders with novice horses have an easier course. Junior and competitive pleasure divisions for horses under 5 years old follow a different route. Riders range in age from 10 to almost 80. Volunteers ride "safety" behind each division to make sure no one is lost in the woods for long. Each trail has planned obstacles, where judges for rider and horse watch each - sometimes secretly - and deduct points for mistakes.

From the starting point, Linda McGrath suspects she is headed for trouble when Shadow Fax, her Arabian horse in the heavyweight open division, charges into the damp woods. Shadow is full of energy and ready to go, and McGrath does not have a bit in his mouth to stop him. Yesterday a friend's horse kicked Shadow in the head. He required three stitches in a cheek, so McGrath is riding him without bridle, using only a halter attached to her reins. In the drizzle not far from the start she sees the first obstacle, a telephone-pole- size log lying across the trail. In the underbrush, the judges are watching. She knows they want her to stop the big Arabian gelding and make him step over the log, and she knows she should try to slow him down, but she doubts she can. "So I just made him jump the log, which is what he was going to do anyway," she says later. "But at least we jumped it together. The judges didn't like it, so that was the first obstacle I blew. We lost points there."

At the earliest checkpoint, called a "P&R," to check horses' pulse and respiration, chairman Maurice Nelson says his team is looking for horses that are stressed after a 10-minute rest. Veterinarian Joe Quintana, an equestrian judge from Farmington, N.M., checked all the horses before the ride to make sure they were physically sound, and he will check each again after the day's ride.

To monitor the horses' health during the ride, there are two or three P&R checks each day. Some are a surprise to riders; others are marked on the map.

Churning through the soft, sandy soil in the forest takes a lot out of the horses, as does the hilly terrain in this area of the woods. The riders call them "huff and puff" hills. They make a horse's respiration rate go way up. The riders lose points at the checks if a horse's pulse and respiration show the animal is too stressed. And if a horse is too slow recovering, it is pulled from competition.

As the trail riders begin to arrive for their horses' checkups, they form a loose line down the trail. The air is warm and concentrated with the scents of pine and cedar. The drizzle has stopped, but the murky sky keeps some riders in their rain gear. Others see hints of sunshine and shed a layer of clothes while they wait.

Those uninitiated to trail riding might think Melady Hale's 19- year-old horse, Lokwyn Talib, is too old for such a strenuous ride. But the Arabian's age does not show. And Hale says his experience makes up for it. He has been competing for 12 years and has won five national championships. He just needs a little more grain and conditioning for a 50-mile weekend than a younger horse. Some stallions can be difficult to handle around other horses, so the tiny yellow ribbons on his forelock and tail signal his gender to other riders. At the P&R check he does as well or better than younger horses.

"Horses absolutely love these rides," Hale says. "People bring old horses hoping they can make it, and they have to hold back on them all weekend. There's somewhere to go. You can get them to do stuff they won't do at home. At home on a lead you ask them to do a lope around an arena, they barely move around it. When you get them on these rides and ask for a lope, they want to run down the trail. It's like, would you rather walk around a track or go hiking?"

Eldorado Elegancia, a Paso Fino show mare, arrives at the checkpoint with an elegant gait that distinguishes the breed. A P&R volunteer suggests the fancy gait makes her work harder on the trail, but it doesn't show. She passes the P&R check and is ready to prance down the trail again, her show poise intact. Owner Suzanne Seal of New Waverly says it is the mare's first trail ride. "A lot of these people are here to win or place. My objective with her is to finish, and us both to have a good time."

Lisa Brooks of Atlanta wants her horse, Chargers Rampage, a Missouri Fox-trotter, to do better than finish. "He has won the President's Cup for the last two years," Brooks says. "He has nine national championships on him and 7,900 miles." She wants to add to his national standing with one more ride. "So I came to Texas," she says, because Georgia's trail rides have ended for the year, and this is the season's last ride for Region 4, which is made up of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.

At the P&R checkpoint most of the riders have little routines or tricks they use to get their horses to relax. Hale pulls on her stallion's forelock. It lets him know the time has come to put his head down and rest. Some of the riders squat down, and this makes their horses put their heads down. It relaxes the back muscles and lets them breathe more deeply. Not far up the line of horses waiting to be checked, a familiar hymn can barely be heard. The melody comes from Betty Wolgram of Craig, Colo., who has her face beside her horse's head and is softly singing "Amazing Grace."

"She needs to be really relaxed," Wolgram says. "I've found singing to her works very well." Her quarter horse, Quickly, has two national championships.

Wolgram also sings on the trail, usually her own version of Que Sera Sera. She shyly sings a few lines. "When I was just a little foal, I asked my dame, 'What will I be? Will I be showy? Will I be fast? Here's what she said to me . . . ' " And they go trotting down the trail.

Her husband, Ken, brought his mare, Summer, to ride in the competition, too. But the vet said she had strained some muscles in her shoulder. Ken chose not to ride her and volunteered for P&R duty.

Shadow Fax and McGrath's calm-down routine has been perfected in the five years they have been trail-riding partners. Shadow has an itchy face and loves to rub it on things. So McGrath lets him rub his head up and down her back. Once he has finished scratching, she gives him some horse treats.

Judy Tobias, horsemanship judge for the competition, has years of judging experience, and she focuses on safety. "We like to see people light in the saddle and helping their horse along."

Among the safety concerns is spacing between horses. A horse should not follow another too closely. Riders lose points for that. Ditto for sitting too far back on the saddle while climbing a hill. When a rider sits too far back, the horse cannot use its hind end to push up the grade, which is the way it should happen, Tobias says. "(People) should put their weight in their legs to help hold them up in the saddle."

In the open division the riders have to make a big loop in the woods. Their main concern is the number of places for their horses to drink. When they do stop for water, they pull sponges tied to 10- foot strings from their saddlebags. While the horse drinks, a rider can stay in the saddle, throw the sponge into the water, reel it up and squeeze it over the horse.

The hill obstacle comes after lunch. Judges instruct riders to go halfway up a steep hill slick with fallen pine needles, stop their horses for a count of 30, then continue up the hill. McGrath is not sure how Shadow will do. He was among the top champions in 1999, placing ninth nationally. But Shadow once had a terrible experience stopping on a hill. McGrath says they were on a trail ride on a logging road cut into the side of a mountain and had to climb an embankment that went up about 40 feet to the tree line. At that time she was riding in the novice division.

"We had just seen an experienced rider have a heck of a time making it up the embankment. The problem was, it was shale, and as each horse had scrambled up, more of it had come down. We had never done anything like this. I said, 'OK, Shadow, I trust you.' I grabbed a hunk of mane, hung on, and he went up to the top. When he got to the top, they had laid a log across the trail. . . . We had worked on stepping over logs, so he knew he was supposed to stop and step over it very carefully. He stopped, put one foot over, put another foot over, and then his whole body started to shake. He lost his balance, and we went flying down the embankment."

McGrath bailed off, afraid he was going to fall and they would roll down together, but Shadow managed to stay on his feet all the way to the bottom. They even finished that ride. But since that time, whenever they hit a hill, "Shadow puts it in high gear and doesn't stop until we've reached the top," McGrath says.

Even though it means losing points, she chooses to "pass" the steep hill obstacle. "I couldn't ask him to do it. It's something we need to go back and practice more. I don't need to have an accident with it."

Near the end of the day's competition the riders have a 30-minute time window to finish the course without losing points. Those who have maintained a speed of about 5 mph come in right in the middle of the allowed window. Once they pass the two-mile marker they have to keep moving forward. If they have planned their strategy right, they can walk their horses for the last two miles. Then when they cross the finish line, the rider can dismount, and the horse is already cooled. "You can unsaddle him at that point, and he's not in a lather looking like some racehorse that just finished the Kentucky Derby," says McGrath, who has finished in the middle.

Once across the finish line, the riders dismount and walk their horses into camp, showing courtesy to the horse that has carried the rider all day. McGrath takes Shadow back to the trailer and washes him. The big Arabian tolerates the water, and he enjoys rolling on his back. But he cannot roll over all the way. He gets down onto his back on one side, rolls around and gets up. Then he does it all over on the other side.

When he is clean, they get in line for the judge to check for injury or stress. Shadow checks out OK. "Everything is cool," McGrath says.

The rider thrown at the beginning of the ride is Judit Dabis of Kingwood, formerly from Hungary. "All the horses were a little bit excited," she says. "The first day of the ride they were ready to rock 'n' roll. Mine was really dancing, and I had a hard time to keep her in one place. I was doing my best, and then somebody came by with a car or truck and honked the horn - some ignorant nonrider, because riders wouldn't do that. So she bucked. The next thing I knew I was flying forward over her head. I landed headfirst on the ground."

Dabis hurt a shoulder (not enough to keep her from riding safety the next day), but her helmet - split by the impact - apparently prevented head injury.

Some trail riders say their horses have saved them from injury. "Lokman has really protected my life," trail master Barbara Harvey says. She bought the Arabian in 1973 when she was 43 and he was 26 months old. Together they have established NATRC records that still stand, and they won more points in 1990 than any other team has won in a year. That year she rode Lokman 1,500 miles in 11 states in 8 1/ 2 months of competitions and won sweepstakes in 11 of the 24 rides - winning the President's Cup, which goes to the top-scoring horse in the nation.

"Lokman has always taken care of me," Harvey says. When she and Lokman were in a competition in the Hill Country near Bandera, they were on a trail that went off a hill on one side. "There was a slab of rock about 2 feet across on the trail," she says. "About the time I thought I should have made him step over it, his slick horseshoes slipped. He went over this embankment, and I flipped off him. When I did, I was too close to the edge, and I went over the thing. I'm expecting him to come down on top of me. But he didn't.

"Lokman's belly was on the edge, and when his front feet went over, he just stopped," Harvey says. "Any other horse would have been berserk and would have been down on top of me. But he kept his cool until I could get up and get him."

Lokman is grandsire of Lokwyn Amir, the horse her granddaughter Lynsey Neely, 17, is riding in the competition. Equestrian judge Quintana says it pleases him to see all the juniors in this ride. "They have a horse. They have some chores, and they learn the responsibility of taking care of that horse. They gain self- confidence. You take your horse 50 miles, and you both come back sound, healthy, in one piece. That's got to feel good. It's not so much winning; if you have completed, you've won."

Once the riders are on the trail the second day, their problem is heat. They are doing yesterday's trail backward, which means they have ample water early in the ride; a big stretch in the middle where there is not any water; then, close to camp, water again. Getting their horses through the long dry spot in the heat worries them. Ironically, the first obstacle of the day is to go into the lake and around a log in the water. The hot wind is gusty, and the lake's surface is covered with slappy little waves. The horses do not want to step into them. The judges give each rider three tries. Shadow refuses the first and second time McGrath asks him to go in. The third time, he enters the water and steps around the log. She loses points for his refusals, but she is pleased he finally went through it.

From the lake they go a long way down the trail and then stop for a P&R. The heat has caught up with everyone by now. Riders and horses are wet with perspiration. After a 10-minute rest, several of the horses still don't clear the check and have to be held an additional 10 minutes. Those that are still stressed afterward are pulled from the ride.

The judges set up a backing obstacle, a serpentine around a bush, a telephone pole and a tree. Shadow does what McGrath wants with the obstacle, but because the rider did not understand the instructions, she fails to complete the maneuver. Although she does two-thirds of it right, the incompletion means lost points. Some other riders have the same problem.

Later they do a trot-by while a judge watches to see if each horse is sound and the rider has good control. The riders try to keep their horses at a trot and not let them drop down to a walk or let them gallop off down the trail. "I know we didn't blow anything there," McGrath says, but she has problems ahead.

There is a P&R somewhere in front of her on four miles of extremely dry trail. She needs to go faster but does not want to gallop into the P&R, so she rides as fast as she dares, then stops and walks a quarter mile to each spot she thinks officials might have planned a P&R. But each time she walks Shadow, they become further behind time.

The P&R check is right before the two-mile marker, and by the time they complete it they are 15 minutes into their 30-minute window to cross the finish line. She gallops Shadow all the way, and they barely make it. Most horses and riders crossing the finish line are wet with perspiration. The riders' clothes are striped with dirt, their riding boots scratched and muddy. But they have made it. They have finished the ride. On the veterinarian's final check, Shadow is Grade 1 lame on a front foot. Not serious, McGrath explains; the grades go from 1 to 4. But it means they lose five more points. She expects to finish last with probably the lowest score she has ever received. She's right about last. She is sixth in a division of six; Shadow takes fourth place.

With the ride over, everyone is playing the what-I-should-have- done game. "I think if I had clipped more hair for this weekend, she would have done better," Wolgram says about her horse, Quickly. The horse has won third in its division, and Wolgram has won first in horsemanship. "She lost points on respiration. I stopped at every waterhole today, and I was wading into the mud to sponge her," Wolgram says.

Hale's horse, Lokwyn Talib, has not let age slow him down. The stallion has won second, and Hale has won second in horsemanship in their open division.

Seal and El Dorado Elegancia have done well on the show mare's first trail ride. Seal's initial goal was just to finish the ride. She and the mare have both won second place in their novice division.

"Elegancia rode her own ride. She minded and didn't really try to buddy up with the other horses, so she did real well," Seal says, adding that they plan to do it again. The show mare whinnies wildly, shaking her head and long black mane, perhaps in agreement.