THE GREAT AMERICAN HORSE RACE

An epic cross-country horse race, dreamt up by two salesmen and won by a mule, made history in 1976.

This is that story.

The race was the brainchild of two men from Illinois, Randy Scheiding and Chuck Waggoner. Both were horsemen who worked as salesmen and dreamed of riding across America on horseback. A few years earlier, Scheiding had covered 300 miles, riding across Illinois into Kansas. He said, “It was the highlight of my life.”

“The country moves so slow on horseback,” Scheiding said. “You have a chance to become part of the landscape. It’s a feeling of freedom I had never experienced.”

Scheiding ran an ad in Western Horseman:

Riders were allowed two horses and could switch them out at any time. Winners would split a $50,000 purse.

It didn’t take long before 94 riders had signed up for the 3,500 mile race, which would cross 13 states as it wound from Saratoga Springs, New York, to Sacramento, California.

The race came at a time when people wanted – and needed – to celebrate America. “People were looking for a party,” said journalist Curt Lewis, who accompanied and documented the race. “Vietnam was just over in ’75. Watergate was over. Nixon was gone.” And, he said, “Everyone was looking for a good time.”

At the same time, America was turning 200 years old. The year-long Bicentennial party included trains and airplanes being painted red, white, and blue, a flotilla of tall ships sailing down the Hudson River, and festivals across the land. The Great American Horse Race fit right in.

Two hundred animals set out from New York on May 31, 1976. The youngest rider was Valorie Briggs, 18, a countrywestern singer riding her half-Arabian half-mustang Tiki, and the oldest was Hub Crossett, 69, a Tennessean horse trader. There were as many women as men among the riders.

Forty-seven states and ten foreign countries were represented. Iceland had contributed ten horses to serve as mounts for Belgian and German riders. There was a Russian Orlov, the only one of its kind in North America, that was descended from a mare and stallion once belonging to Nikita Khrushchev, former premier of the Soviet Union. And as a tribute to the Bicentennial, France’s Team Lafayette had sent 120 riders, who rode in full costume as soldiers of Lafayette, outside competition.

And then there were the mules. A steeplejack (painter of tall things, like smokestacks), horse breeder, and trainer by the name of Virl Norton had brought them. At 60, Norton was one of the oldest riders, hailing originally from Wyoming. He didn’t have a crew or much money, but he was smart and, it was said, “tough as a boiled owl.”

Norton had brought two mules: one named Lord Fauntleroy and, as a backup, Lady Eloise. Both were half thoroughbred. Lord Fauntleroy, also known as Leroy, stood at 16 hands— large for a mule or a horse.

Arabians are considered the best horses for endurance riding. According to Lewis, the journalist, the motto is, “If you’re not riding an Arabian, you’re following an Arabian.”

Norton had Arabians – good ones –but he didn’t bring them. He chose the mules through shrewd thinking, and he had a strategy. The thinking was, mules might be slow, but they had the virtues of durability and stamina. For a 3,200mile ride, those qualities would be more important than speed.

“Watch the mules,” Norton said. “They’re tougher and can take the tough terrain better than a horse.”

And Norton’s strategy? Plod along.

That’s exactly what he did. He kept to a steady pace of 10 miles per hour throughout the race, no matter what kind of land they were riding through. Slow and steady.

Four veterinarians accompanied the riders and checked every horse at tenmile intervals. Any animal found unwell or even unable to walk properly had to be trailered until it was healthy enough to rejoin the race.

It was a slow race. Riders started en masse at dawn and followed a set route to a daily finish line. Each day’s race was timed, to be tallied at the end. There were penalties for late starts and missed days when animals had to be trailered.

And the race almost fell apart before it was halfway across the country. The organizers ran out of money in Hannibal, Missouri, and the race came to a halt. But the riders had too much invested to just go home. They passed the hat to pay for the vets and support crews, and kept the ride going.

There were fun and games along the way. When the race passed through a town, schools would let the kids out and people would line the streets as the riders went by, bringing drinks for the riders and apples for the horses. Virl Norton would let the kids climb on the mules to get their picture taken.

Valorie Briggs recalled that every night, riders and crew gathered around a campfire. “Everybody would sing, and we’d play music, drink whiskey and talk,” she said. They would drop a glowstick in the whiskey jug so they could find it in the dark.

Briggs also remembered the weather. “Places like Kansas, Missouri,” she said, had rainstorms that she still remembered 30 years later. “You’d put your poncho on, and pull it down so you could barely see out of the eye hole, and it would still drench you.”

A popular topic of conversation was shoeing. Valorie’s shoer had figured out a way to do the long ride. She said, “I wound up with a leather pad, with silicone underneath to keep anything from getting under there, and then a ‘half round shoe’ with borium on it.” When the shoe was shaped and ready, they ran the borium around the heel and toe and welded the shoe on. Briggs said Tiki never wore through his shoes, because the borium was harder than steel.

On the other hand, the Orlov stallion had to be re-shod every five days, and eventually there wasn’t enough hoof left to nail to. He was scratched from the race.

For the first two weeks, the faster horses took the lead, outpacing Virl Norton and Leroy the mule. But in Kankakee, Illinois, Leroy overtook them, and after that Norton was never lower than third place. By the end of the race, only the mules were still strong and sound.

When the 73 finishers rode into Sacramento’s county fair that September afternoon, Leroy was tenth to come in. Valorie Briggs came in fourteenth. But after the times were all tallied and penalties deducted, Lord Fauntleroy had won. Total time: 315 hours.

Norton’s son, Pierce, who had come along to help and drive their ’71 Dodge pickup, remembered, “There was a whole bank of press photographers and just these cameras flashing and going off like crazy. And some of the other competitors put my dad up on [their] shoulders and ran him around the fairground.”

“We did something that nobody had ever done before,” Valorie Briggs said. “I can say, I rode my horse from New York to California! It really was an adventure.”

by Peter Bigfoot

I have been stung 36 times out here on the farm. I’ve been stung grabbing a towel off the towel rack in the shower house, putting on a pair of sandals, carrying a feed sack, leaning against the chicken coop, picking up a piece of lumber, moving a tarp lying on the ground, holding a roll of toilet paper, and, the most popular time, handling firewood. Also once at night when I got out of bed barefoot. There are two basic types of scorpions in this region, rock scorpions and bark scorpions. Rock scorpions are mostly found under rocks, and bark scorpions live around wood and in our homes. If you lift up a rock and there is a scorpion under it, it will probably be sitting on the ground with its tail up over its back or straight out. This will be a rock scorpion. If you pick up a piece of firewood or a cardboard box and there’s a scorpion under it, it will probably cling upside-down to the underside of the board or box. This makes it difficult to see and also puts it right where you might place your hand, greatly increasing the chances of getting stung on a hand – the worst possible place.

Both types of scorpions have a nasty sting, although the bark scorpion’s is often many times more potent and painful than that of the rock scorpion. The sting happens lightning fast. The very first feeling might be like you got a splinter or glochid, but it quickly escalates to pain like having a lit cigarette crushed into your skin, plus numbness and tingling. Sometimes the discomfort subsides after an hour or so, only to come roaring back a couple of hours later. Then the pain and discomfort spread through your body.

After this point, you hurt all over with what I call restless agitation. Most likely you will be laying down at this point, but there is no comfortable position. This discomfort may go on for 24 to 48 slow-passing hours until the suffering begins to subside. The wound often remains numb and tingly for a month or so.

The amount of pain depends on where you get stung and how much venom was delivered. Because the sting affects the nervous system, the hands and feet are the most painful places to be stung, and they are also, unfortunately, the most likely places to be stung. When I’ve been stung on a fleshy part of my body like my leg or back, it has not been quite so bad. It felt like a scorpion was running up and down under my skin, accompanied by some pain, numbness and tingling. I usually get these kinds of stings in bed after a scorpion drops from the ceiling. Or from the ones waiting in my pants or shirt in the morning.

I have had an obsession for finding remedies growing wild or in my garden. The desert plants, bushes and trees are my pharmacy. I have discovered remedies that really work for bees, snakes, spiders, scorpions, and even rabies. If I did not know these things it would be too dangerous to live out here at the farm. I have at least six good remedies for scorpion stings. One of these remedies I have bottled and for sale to the public, along with remedies for about 20 other maladies. This scorpion remedy relieves about 90% of the suffering. The sooner it is applied the better it works.

A few years ago I stopped killing brown recluse and black widow spiders. Want to know why? On several occasions I have seen scorpions attempt to eat spiders, only to have the spider proceed to tie up the scorpion with its strings of web. Immobilized and all bundled up, the scorpion could hardly move. The spider bit the scorpion’s tail and the scorpion died instantly. The spider then hoisted the scorpion up into its web and ate it.

My favorite treatment of scorpions is to search about with an ultraviolet flashlight. The scorpion will light up a bright lime green color. I can see them from 10 feet away or more. Then I come armed with a portable propane plumber’s torch and pull the trigger. The flame comes out and roasts the scorpion instantly. Let off the trigger and the flame goes out. It is best to keep a squirt bottle of water handy to extinguish any possible flames. A few years ago when I first began this practice I roasted 300 scorpions in less than two hours. Now on a good night, or maybe it’s a bad night, I only find about 50. It is, after 36 stings, a very satisfying pursuit.

Peter “Bigfoot” Busnack was born in New Jersey in 1941. He came out west in 1963 and became a natural healing physician, herbalist, desert survival expert, teacher, philosopher, farmer and founder of Reevis Mountain School of Self Reliance. Peter also is the creator of Reevis Mountain Remedies, a line of herbal remedies sold nationwide and here in Globe. You may have met Peter at the Globe farmer’s market selling fruit and vegetables. Peter is also the author of three books: Book of Ancient Natural Remedies, Natural Remedies for Bites & Stings, and Cooking with Bigfoot.