It's all about The Chief Joseph Trail Ride on this episode of Big Blend Radio's "ABC's of Horses" equestrian podcast with equestrian expert Christy Wood.
Christy Wood talks about her second 13-year circuit of the Chief Joseph Trail Ride, a progressive trail ride hosted by the Appaloosa Horse Club (ApHC). A portion of the ride is completed each year, with the entire sequence taking thirteen years to complete. Its route traces, as closely as possible, the route Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce took while attempting to escape the US Cavalry in 1877. Her latest book, “Hoofprints Across Time: A Trail Ride to Remember," is a memoir about her experiences in the Chief Joseph Trail Ride. More: https://www.wdnhorse.com/
The "ABC's of Horses" Podcast with Christy Wood airs every 2nd Saturday. Listen to the latest episodes here: https://abcs-horses-christywood.podbean.com/
Follow our Chief Joseph Trail podcasts: https://nationalparktraveling.com/listing/the-chief-joseph-trail-ride/
Welcome to the ABCs of Horses, a big blend and radio podcast featuring Christie Wood, a world champion horse trainer, a carted horse show judge, an equestrian expert and an author. Welcome everybody, you know you are listening to the ABCs of Horses with Christie Wood and I'm Lisa and usually we tackle a letter of the alphabet. Last month it was Foles, fillies and Colts. Well today we're going to take a little detour because Christie just came home from her epic trail ride that she does every year. It's the Chief Joseph Trail Ride. It's put on by the Appaloosa Horse Foundation and it's a foundation of readers' organization. You've got to get me straight on that. I'm always like it's the Appaloosa dudes but she's going to tell us about the trail ride because this is a progressive 13 year trail ride following in the footsteps of Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce when they were out running the Calvary, the U.S. Calvary. So it's very historic. It's part of our national parks and public lands, national forests and so it goes up through the Pacific Northwest and the West and she does this every year, does one piece of the trail with other riders. So it is a 13 year progressive trail and she is on her second round of or second run I should say of this trail and what's neat about it is she wrote a book about it so everyone's going to go get it. Her latest book is out now and it covers the Chief Joseph Trail Ride which I think is pretty epic what she does. So go get it. It's called Hoof Prince Across Time, a trail ride to remember. Again by Christie Wood you can go to our website to get it wdnhorse.com. So welcome back home Christie. Well thank you Lisa it's nice to be home except I do miss my Nez Perce and Appaloosa family. I go what every year is almost like a family reunion the riders we are so connected. So just to help you understand it is the Appaloosa Horse Club that's it. Thank you. That is in Moscow, Idaho. They are the sponsors of the ride and it's been going on since 1965 and you were correct it does take 13 years to complete the ride with us riding 100 miles every year to follow the 1300 mile trail from beginning to end and it is a progressive ride and it's also we ride the National Historic Nez Perce Trail and it was given that designation in 1986. It became a national historic trail. So it's just an awesome awesome ride and yeah. Where did you go on this portion of the route? Where did you start and where did you end? So if people do get my book or already have the book and want to follow along the book is not by chapters it's by years because that will help you understand each year and which leg of the ride that we do each year. So this was year six and year six is the ride that rides into the big whole battlefield. Now there are eight battles along the way of those 1300 miles in the three and a half months that the Nez Perce actually did this trail in real life and they had eight battles where the Nez Perce won six out of the eight and unfortunately this was one that was very devastating. 90 Nez Perce lost their lives and it was just a tragedy and I can take you through the ride and we'll talk about the the closing ceremony at the end of this if you like but it's just something to recognize. So we started in actually Darby Montana this year and Darby Montana for those of you that like to follow the Yellowstone I guess series on TV with Kevin Costner. And Ryan Bingham by the way we gotta give a shout out to the musician Ryan Bingham since he was on our show and we think he's hot. Anyway sorry. All right one of my favorite musicians. So I'm just saying that because it's off of Highway 93 and we actually had to drive by there and the security is very very tight you can't get even close if you sneeze are going to wonder what's wrong with you. So anyway so we started in Darby Montana and of course when we start our rides our rides thank goodness we are we are blessed to have a camp crew that goes out and talks to the Forest Service the fire service in the area and private land owners because we're looking for places that we can camp 80 riders which means we're going to have at least 60 horse trailers if not more there plus the camp crew with all of their rigs and so we feel a pretty good weak field or somebody's pasture in order to camp. So we have an assembly camp where we start the ride and then of course the ride is a progressive ride it moves camp every night everything is packed up when the riders ride out at eight o'clock in the morning the drivers get in the rigs and they move the rigs to the next camp and the next camp is going to be the same thing possibly Forest Service make sure we're not in the in the way of any fire service that could be up you know doing protection of the lands and private owners again we have so many generous private landowners that allow us to come onto their property and camp and I mean it's quite a spectacle if you look at my book and actually there's the apple is a horse club will post some pictures if you remember the apple is a horse club you'll see pictures in the journal we have a facebook page called the chief joseph trail riders then you can certainly join and follow along with all the wonderful pictures that are posted after the ride and then it's a great source of information if you would like to consider this ride plus the postings from everybody of someone might looking might be looking for horses to lease or be looking for a driver to move their rig so this is where we all connect usually is on this facebook page but the apple looser horse club it's apple looser.com has a section just for trail rides and they have a section just for the chief joseph trail ride the application will be there the information on how to get yourself ready your horse ready what you need to bring and it's very very thorough plus my book my book is book is really a great eye opener for anybody that's considering this or has never heard about it it will really give you an idea of how you can come along and enjoy this you may not want to be on a horse you know some some seniors may not really physically want to ride five days but you can come and camp with us and enjoy the evening speakers and we have music and we have wonderful chefs that cook for us and and just meeting the people is just an amazing experience i think that's really cool because this is true living history you know when you think about what you do is we've covered the the trail ride with you for years now and in fact everyone we have a page about it up on national park traveling dot com that links to a video that we've done at one point we didn't film it was just a nice slideshow video kind of thing and also as a playlist of podcasts that we have done over the years on the chief joseph trail so that will be linked in the episode notes so you can see that and also christie's book so you can follow along with this but this is living history and what it's living history it's then and now because it is really celebrating the past the present right now when you're in the present on the horse you have to always be present as you know christie always says you've got to be in you've got to be focused in present especially on a trail ride like this but you're also looking at the future because you're also connecting with the indigenous people of these regions that you're riding through not just you know not just the farmers and the ranchers and the locals who are kind and saying hey yes let's do this but also um the actual indigenous people um that you know the ness purse you know you actually get to connect with them and for that unity to happen when there was no unity of that nature back then which is pretty big. We have descendants yes and we have descendants of deep joseph that ride with us uh we have a lot of ness peers that ride with us it's a ride of healing for them you know they have to go through this every you know every 13 years they join us and that affect one of our head scouts is a ness purse young lady named Lucy Samuels who's very good at what she does and she brings the history of her family to us and shares that with us we have guest speakers from the national park service land owners oh my gosh the land owners who will come and speak and tell us that their great great grandfather actually met chief joseph when he passed their land and now peaceful they were and they just wanted to be left alone and they wanted to flee uh the calvary who was trying to force them on to much smaller uh reservation and and and into basically a compound i don't even want to call it a reservation a compound right and now allowing them to hunt and live like they have over the 10 000 acres that they used to you know live on it's a hard it's a hard change you know change is just tough you know when you you live in the country then all of a sudden someone puts up a three-story hotel next to you you're going what the heck has happened so you know we ended we constantly infringed i guess maybe that's progress for a lot of people um but it was just there was a lot of things a lot of mistakes that were made and and truly the ness purse were a peaceful indian tribe they uh want to be left alone they didn't want to be um have a conflict and they really had no choice they had to leave um there was just a lot of misunderstanding and rage from the calvary side as well as the ness purse side because some ness purse were killed and it just uh the the the um volunteers that came to help the calvary wanted to actually get back at the native americans protect their lands number one but then also to retaliate so it was just and in several instances someone shot a gun that shouldn't have shot because they weren't given the order to shoot and that's what starts the whole massacre it's just really very sad um but we don't always forget and that's why we live this history we don't want to forget so we can at least make the effort to be kinder to each other and not repeat this again with anybody in the in the modern world i think that's huge christy and you write it you're in you're doing you're you're tracing the footsteps of history and you know going on a slower pace and you know trying to escape the calvary right but you're in it so you're really immersed in this history and it's got to be emotional because i always find that like when i go to a battlefield my body gets weird like i don't know if i'm just overly sensitive but i i like going to get as for like i i down i had to go down because i was too um and i saw the way people walked over monuments and it was like what do you do you know that there's a well that you know what i mean yeah every generation just seems to have to lack the interest of history i see that more and more and i i hope it's not a hundred percent true that that some generations will want us to look back at the past and look back at the history and maybe they go only as far as world war two you know and not go any further to the 1870s but there's just uh it's quite a story and and yes when you're on this trail you actually you can feel that if you're if you're tuned in to you know god and mother earth and your waya con spirit that that of these of these native americans that were there i'm sure they're almost grateful that we're doing this to keep them alive they're their memory alive and what they endured and to be on this trail i i mean we're on a horseback and yes i'm going to have a trailer a comfortable trailer to and a shower at the end of the day with you know in the back of the showering basically in the back of my horse trailer but i have more comforts than the nespers ever had and for them to endure this with family and children and and seniors and there are two thousand horses and you know waking up every day and trying to have hope to find the way to Canada to find sanctuary you know you just have that hope every day we even though we know the outcome um that wakes you up and you and you have a new day and the dawn is there you just you know you just hope for the best and it's just amazing this trail it was very difficult this year um we started out i think the first camp was at um 3100 feet and um one of our um trail guides simply said well what we asked what we're going to do today he says well you're going to go up and then you're going to go down and that was and that was it he really forgot to say that up is going to be switchbacks at almost 45 to 50 degree angle straight up to where your horse is going to stop probably every 10 feet to catch their breath because it's such a hard climb but our our Appaloosa horses are just amazing and of course i've got a good program to get my horses ready for this and uh and that's an important factor too and being prepared for it but it's to to have people carrying their supplies and and pulling their everything they own on their backs or on the um uh you know the horses packing some of them it's just a very difficult thing and you just have to go back and think about what they endured for this yeah you know it's it's their life you know and it's a flight for their life you know right that's why yes you went to the battlefield i mean is there are there signs there or is there interpretation oh yes there's an interpretive center there you can't miss it it's called the big hole um battlefield interpretive center it's near the little town of wisdom honestly i can't remember to tell you the highway that it's off i i'm not sure if that's 20 i can't remember it but it's off the 93 and so it's actually between the 93 and 15 highway 15 and it is in Montana so it's really due east of Darby Montana off of 93 and you can get to the big hole battlefield uh they have wonderful um dulcens that will tell you the stories there is a you get to walk both the battlefield and the battlefield is sort of stretched out there is the battlefield encompasses where the indians had formed their camp and the tps are still there they're very visible to where they had camped alongside the river thinking that they were secure and that nobody was going to be chasing them because one of the one of the um spiritual leaders of the tribe had a dream and an envision that they were not being chased anymore which is very very sad um but then the calvary found them uh the telegraph always is probably one of the main reasons that they didn't succeed is because of the telegraph telegraphing ahead saying hey we spotted them here we spotted them there they could send troops in from the east instead of from the west um but the calvary came up upon them uh at the big hole camp that they had early in the morning and again their orders were to retrieve and capture the ness pierce and bring them back through the wall of a valley to put them on the reservation and i'm not sure i don't say can't say right now which which general gave the order or which captain gave the order but i think one of the generals who was actually in charge of chasing them wasn't present at that time and the other person in charge said it might be just easier instead of trying to bring them all back why don't we just try to kill as many as we can oh on the early early yeah on the early morning hours i think at these the uh actually anniversary is august 9th or 10th but i i don't know for sure but that's why we had the ride later this year was to actually be part of riding in and camping and coming across the street and being a part of the ceremony um that's why the ride was a week later but the orders from the calvary were to shoot low into the tps at dawn because everybody would be sleeping and that's the best way that their bullets would be the most effective in killing as many nurse purses they could so that's what happened and um god and i'm sorry that's just that's insane it's tragic and i'm being honest about this and it is in the book and it's at the interpretive center i mean i'm not making any of this up this is history and they thought that the native americans always thought that if there was a battle they were told their chiefs and their braves told them you run for the water to cover yourself get into the reeds find find always run to the river run to the water for cover and for safety unfortunately the calvary had come up above the area where that they had camped that night and they were on a ridge looking straight down starting the line of trial a line of of of sight for them to shoot into the bottom of the tps and when they awoke realizing there was a lot of commotion and what was happening the nurse first ran right to the water and that's where the calvary was also stationed so it was just a real total tragedy except that the nurse first fought back and actually pushed the calvary back into a siege area they call it and you can walk this there's there are paths and there are dulcens that tell you what's happened and it's there's markers that show you the dig outs the calvary dug into the ground to you know make it for a more protection for them so they wouldn't all be shot they'd have a place to hide behind the mounds of dirt and dug digging in deep to the earth and the anions were able to you know push them back at least and 37 calvary men died there as well but then the nurse first lost 90 of their people just a total tragedy the whole thing so we wrote for we wrote for four days this year um with the last day being um adjoining the ceremony of the big hole battle and we had uh the nurse first tribe came out had some wonderful speakers that talked they did their ceremonial drumming uh smoking of the peace pipe they honored each other within their tribe with things that people have been doing uh one of the elders stood up and said after this ceremony we would like only ness purse to stay because we have discovered more graves of our ness purse and more things have been revealed of how tragic that battle really was and that's all i'm going to say right now uh that they they gave us a tiny tidbit of what was happening but we respected all that we all left and only the ness purse they wanted to take their family members to these gravesites because they needed to see um again the aftermath and you know what history really what happened in history well you know and and i totally respect that and i think that's so important because i mean right now there's there's wars over Native American remains between museums and the Native American peoples like their ancestors they're like oh it needs to be in a museum oh well the museum says they can take care of it better than their people i mean i mean we're talking Smithsonian level stuff and it's definitely Florida is one of the regions and it's it's uh i think we have i think we have an abundance of items in museums now because we don't need we do not need i mean you can look at a picture yeah that's it right but i think the tribes yeah the individual tribes need to address that and it's and it's and it's collectively they can decide if they want to release some items for posterity meaning for history so people can learn if we have enough of those items to them if it's so emotional that it ties them to their family then it's their decision not to release those those are those are the ballons of their forefathers just like chief joseph said he never wanted to sell his property because his dad was buried there in the wall of a valley right oh very and that's where we were at land we were there that winter this past winter and you know that area joseph say i got goosebumps like you couldn't believe like massive goosebumps as we talk um just that that um you don't mess with ancestral places we did a lot on the dakota access pipeline and i'm not getting political i really do but i did on this because it was the indigenous people's water rights and they're going and and land rights and they're like oh we can put this pipeline it doesn't and it was actually ruining ranchers land yeah i mean it was hitting you know um and i'm not going right or wrong here but you don't we've taken enough and here they were thinking oh well it's under the water so it doesn't matter and they're like excuse me and we interviewed uh cody hall in the red warrior camp and came on our show and we weren't supposed to even do a podcast it was back when we were doing live shows which you've been on many and they no one covered this and we were on the first no one i mean all the big news channels ignored it it was like Labor Day weekend right um one journalist amy from democracy now went and she got arrested the person we interviewed got arrested and no no it was terrible what they were doing and so some of the pregnant native american ladies went and tied themselves to the chain themselves to the tractors that were destroying their ancestral burial grounds their ancestors land so they went there and our national guard turned dogs on them like we did back in the day um turned dogs on pregnant women and so i was like oh heck yeah we can do a live show right now we'll you know turn it on let's get it and that is our president at the time did nothing um our our major news channels did nothing it was up to all the independence and i think i don't even know how they found us like they were just like hey you're you're obviously cover land and native american history and in nature and i think we've done so many shows on you know the indigenous people's history and and respect for that out of respect not out of we were an indian thing uh-uh and what happened there was disgusting and how would you like to turn the tables in in your local in your local town you have a graveyard how would you feel someone came up and dug up your your family i mean it's the same it's it's not any different but then did they turn dogs on pregnant women well yeah that's not right so we got a look at that i thought i thought so we have this is so French history this is right now still happening so when you're writing the chief joseph trail so i get goosebumps i get all upset about it all the time i'm sorry um but the chief joseph trail it's not that long ago and if we could go all the way to now the Dakota access pipeline which was not that long ago we're talking five six seven years ago max i have to go look in the records if you look at that we're not acting any different if we can set dogs on pregnant native american women trying to protect their ancestral burial sites oh gosh i can't i got goosebumps everywhere kristi i don't know how you do this trail right i'd be so upset i'd be so like uh but you know that you're doing the right thing right you know that you're and you're interpreting this in a beautiful way with your books and you know podcast and you know you you have so much um true dignity and um respect healthy respect and i mean healthy respect um you know the native americans have been this is kind of the same thing as people put the you know just the americana items of native american people like you know what i mean that that's the symbol of the west this wonky kind of stuff to sell you know they're not trinkets these are people of the land they were the first people right they were here before us whiteys got here right and we did bad things so i feel like um well we have more people need more people need to get out and walk that trail even if you do a portion of it there are there are some wonderful markers at the forest service and the national park service has put up that you can read you can stop along high re-93 and and see that you can see the lewis and clark trail that really pretty much overlaps in this first trail a lot a lot and you're up on the continental divide if people really like to hike get yourself up there there's there's it's accessible but you've got to be able to do some serious walking and climbing and be prepared to endure it so you're not going to drive by and see a Starbucks and you're not going to see it all and not understand it all from the road even with the signs i mean they do have you know historical landmarks which is wonderful but you need to get out there and put your foot on that same dirt that same trail you've got to do that you really want to understand it i agree i agree who i mean do you know the when you ride when you're riding do i know i've asked you this before over the years and i'm going to ask you again it's heavy history that you're riding through but also some of the most spectacular scenery that the country has and you're on horseback right so there's the trail riding and you have to be prepared with your horse and we get we need to touch on that getting your horses ready for this kind of event even having them trailer and getting there and then hey this is something new and you've also have a different horse that you've been riding the last few ones right and um do the horses feel the history do you think and i know i've asked you this but i have to bring it up do they feel it because i you know you know i walk dogs a lot as we travel and there's certain things like i think animals know they sniff everything right you know that you're a dog person too animals smell everything and i wonder i would like to do a study of how far back their scent can go i'm you know well i can hear a couple of chapters chapter nine in my book talks about why seriously riding indielstone and how my horse reacted to a grizzly bear that's all i'm going to say see folks have to buy the book go read chapter nine and find out about a grizzly bear and then right there and then riding into the elastone and having dollar in my mirror that i rode the first uh 1,300 miles on the on the fourth rotation of this ride how she perceived a bison for the very first time unbelievable how she studied a bison now most horses don't stop and study any animal that looks bizarre or strange that they've never seen before a horse just as soon turn around and run from danger or something they don't understand that's how they stay to lie for billions of years they don't analyze horses don't have brains to analyze they have a fleet of flight or flight for survival and we rode up on top of a mountain up there in west yellowstone and that's in the book as well about dollar perceiving for the first time seeing 500 bison staying in front of her and she was so calm and so intent picking up their scent and just watching them and of course i'm probably putting my own human emotions into her but i know my horse well enough that she was cute into them watching them without any fear and almost have an understanding of them which never comes from a horse that hasn't seen anything before first time they're gonna leave i'm out of here i don't i don't even want to find out what that is i just want to leave and she studied them it was just amazing and in my head my human thoughts i i was processing what her thoughts were and i put this in the book that i felt that she truly felt that maybe her ancestors saw these bison 150 years ago and they carried in as first who were their beloved humans that developed this breed and shared their lives with them and she she trans she understood that she said that's something that we're going to engage and i'm going to carry my my native american friend i may carry christie in closer to these bison but this is something that we need to go experience explore and be a part of it was so interesting that she had no fear that's well well i also i will take it a step further and say we still haven't discovered everything about the horse what we know now is what we know now right and how what if she's able to know what you're doing and her mind like she knows you right and it may be on the trail because she's been on the trail with you she was smelling bison beforehand going oh i know that so it comes and it comes and she was already anticipating because the scent could be fresher it could be not it could be like she smelled it before and you know i'm not quite sure where she were to smell that before except maybe in the approach but she never been here before ever in her whole life i've never taken her near that's a my that's amazing like there's so much more to learn about animals and it's about having a patience with it too i mean i i love to see you i mean you know how animals react to things how they watch how i mean just watching how animals smell things to me tells you oh there's something there you just are stupid human eye doesn't even pick up we have to go that's like glass their side is different than ours uh there just you have to take all that into consideration when a horse reacts and then how they're wired to react they're wired to react to save their life that's where the trust in the training comes in with the human so we could be a partner in that in either agreeing that yes maybe we'll probably both need a lead or let's just stay it's going to be okay we're going to get through this and that's where the trust comes in and the bond comes in so it's i took a wonderful friend this year with me her name is Stephanie and she rode another one of my buckskin galdings and it was her first time it was the galdings first time and they actually did a beautiful job together she thoroughly enjoyed it i wish she could have been here today to talk to you hopefully we'll get her on an episode later on so you can hear her first year impression of this ride because it's always good to see how people perceive things for the first time but they did have a beautiful ride ride and we really truly got our horses and ourselves prepared she was here at six o'clock in the morning prior to this ride to ride out because we were having extreme heat here in california and uh didn't really uh couldn't really even ride past 11 o'clock in the morning the heat was just too intense and in the evenings the the heat would last past six or seven so it only gives me another hour and a half pushing two hours of daylight to get my horses ready but um so we were very limited and in our time to get our horses ready but i do have a wonderful route in three rivers of mountains and water and foothills and um i got my 10 miles in just about every other day on my horse to get them fit my horses were fit they handled the ride beautifully as difficult as it was um Stephanie and i did just find the only problem i had was when i wasn't riding in camp when you're up at 6100 feet elevation uh and even higher and i i really felt that in my lungs i i had a i had a hard time with my breath but riding my horse it was fine but my horses were in great shape and condition and um it was just a wonderful wonderful week but getting back to the ceremony at the very end we actually our camp was across the street from the interpretive center they're the big old battlefield and um we had several ness purse that came into the empty saddle ceremony for us uh several chiefs rode several ladies rode uh and they ponied a horse with an empty saddle three times around the circle of the ceremony uh and then and then the ness purse talked and i i tell you what it's it still grabs you it grabs me now mmm no it's deep it's deep and i cried for i cried literally for two and a half hours and matter of fact my draw eyes were so dry after that i didn't have any moisture left in my body wow and it's just personal and it's um you know and we we've lost a few Native American friends over the last couple of years and it was um it was tough to be there without them as well and just the newcomers and it's just um a lot of reverence and a lot of honor and gratefulness to uh that they allowed us to be a part of that and they bring their youth in too right i remember that from yes conversations yes i mean and this is so interesting i mean chief jose of everyone uh one link i will put in the episode notes as well is to christy's very first podcast on the abc's so we did one that we introduced the show and then the a was for apolisa horse so i'm going to link that so you can hear about chief joseph and how he created the apolisa horse breed right because that's a huge part of it so when we i got goosebumps again what's going on whoo girl what are you doing i mean this is like you know every time we talk about the chief joseph it's it's just it's heavy and light at the same time i don't know how to explain it it's light in that we're talking about it and getting people aware and um but it's just heavy history and we cannot shelve our our heavy history we cannot do it i mean you know the other day we had to take someone's comment off a youtube channel because there was a place that you know it was a plantation that had slavery and all of that and they talked about how change happened how what was it it was a tour that we took and videoed and they're like well they need to tear it down and tear this down and i'm like dude like you're look how you're talking that's hateful you know um bye bye don't do that on our part then we don't just need to remain so we can learn from it yes and they can't talk about it and you can't erase it from history you need to still see unfortunately the slavery but you also see how far we've come and how and how about service and slavery was oh they do a good job of interpreting you know yeah yes you've got to learn from this you learn from the statues and that's just part of what we that's how we got better hopefully we got better is because we stopped all of that well we we need to all get along a little bit better because where does that kindness we need to show more kindness to each other and find actively find common ground actively find the common ground not the negative stuff not the what we don't agree on focus on the common the common good that term the common good let's go for that what's enjoyable about this ride is i'm riding with people that love the apaloosa they love the history they love the ness purse they love it land they love mother nature they love what god has given us i mean there's so many different ways to look at this and that's what brings these people together on this pilgrimage every year i'm on my 19th just finished my 19th consecutive year like still 20 and i'm hoping my goal is to get 26 in because i want to finish the ness purse trail twice yes i want to be well 13 years and i'm and i'm doing it on actually a half brother to dollar that's right related to the the mayor i wrote for the first 1300 miles it's a dollar related to secretariat is that's or is that a no that's a different horse i had a different horse i had a great brand of your secretary that's a yeah that's a whole other yeah that's a whole other story i just remembered well somebody just posted a photo of secretariat and i went well christina's yeah you know yeah but i was involved with that i've i love that you do this and i love that you keep the history alive of the past present and i keep inviting people so what we're trying to do is we the ride used to have let's say an average of 250 riders we're down to about 80 riders right now covid hit us all pretty hard the economy is hitting us rather hard and so uh you know if you know about this ride you can and that my book will help you with this plan ahead of time budget for it have a plan you know people you're welcome to call you're welcome to contact me through email you can find my phone number i'm sure uh on my website um you know i even have a i even have a facebook page it's under my name of christy wood and i will post a few pictures from there of the chief joseph trail ride um from time to time but um you know you can contact me having more unhappy to answer any questions about this and try to give you an easy way that you can start in to getting yourself ready for this ride possibly two people come and share one horse so one person rides one day the next person and the next day the person drives so you can still be a part of it don't have to worry about riding for five days or you don't physically don't think you can um but just have a horse ready obviously the horse is going to get ridden every day but there's some ways to really truly experience this and so we're trying to build the ride back up again so uh let me just say this uh if we still have enough time here is that we have opened the ride up to 30 non-apulusa horses before it is strictly um apulusa only because that's how we honor this trail and the history of the trail and the horse but we're opening it up so people can come and experience it and it worked out beautifully this year we had a group that came of 18 riders from another state that had five apuluses in their family but the rest of the family members you know for one reason another couldn't find an apulusa or didn't have the right horse for a youth to ride or whatever and they came with um whatever the map is another eight horses that were non-apuluses so we're going to do that for the next three years or so is to allow people to come with an non-apulusa with other family members that have apis or you can just still come on the ride and just enjoy this and experience it for a couple years. I think that's smart because like you say the you know the the way the um you know the way the finances are somebody can't just run out and buy an apulusa sometime you know it's like suddenly and be ready for it you know I think it's more important that you have safety on it and yes have your your main apulusa crew right you want that but um to allow it for people to I think if they're used to a horse and the horse is used to them and they're going to go on a trail ride like this that's safety wise it's important right well the horse has to be at least the horse has to be at least four years age four years of age or older before it can come on the ride and the riders have to be at least 12 so that's just something to know and seriously getting ready and this is something you're not going to decide to do at the last minute and you need to get your horse prepared and you need to have a plan you truly have to plan for this but it is totally worth it get your get your vacation time in and just know that you're going to do this and it's going to be a wonderful experience actually a couple last year ended up buying my book and loved reading about the book that they decided to drive all the way out from Wisconsin without their horses and come experience the ride and go from camp to camp to see how people handle their horses what they're doing you know what works it was very smart and they came back the sheer of horse and road oh that's fantastic I love stories like that I love the fact that don't yeah it this is horse and rider in the wilderness let's be smart you know yes be smart have the take you know it's calculated risk right you know and the adrenaline's got to be high but everyone again we're here every second saturday with christy and next month we're going to be talking we're going to the g are you the big g the g i don't know the oh g the g the goat are you the goat no we're talking about g gear and grooming next month we're going to be talking English and western tack we're going to be talking about the gear and tack you want for whether it's you're going to a show or you're just going for a happy ride we're going to talk about cleaning your tack that's very important how to clean it take care of it leather we're not we don't really care about the other stuff right like nylon we don't care i'm going to talk about bits spurs and pads so it's just like your car you want to take care of those brake pads i'm just saying sometimes you need new battery too just saying just recently had to do all that stuff so i'm just saying tune in for next month and if you have not caught the other episodes check them out wherever you're listening there's a playlist of them all and again um i'm going to have that link for apaloosa um in the show notes so wherever you're listening you can check it out and um hear more about the apaloosa horse and chief joseph i will also have the link for christy's website so you can get her book also on amazon it's there but it's really cool for authors to buy directly if you can um but i know y'all who love amazon want to go do it on amazon so i'll have that there too and also the link to what we've done over the chief joseph trail over the years um we'll have that in there too so thank you all for listening as always we'll be back next month thank you christy thank you lisa thank you everyone for listening and let me hear from you i really would love to have your input and suggestions and uh let's dialogue some more thank you for listening to big blend radios abc's of horses featuring christy wood you can keep up with christy and learn more about her services and her books by going to her website wdnhorse.com Keep up with Big Blend Radio at BigBlendRadio.com.
