FROM: Susan Maxwell Skinner, Sacramento
PST
The Females Must Get through
Report by Susan Maxwell Skinner Sacramento
In 1860, Pony Express recruitment favored lean boys. Orphans were preferred. To carry mail between Sacramento and St Joseph MO, riders galloped like the wind. There was a chance of being killed en route.
Despite the macho legend, annual reruns of the fabled ride now depend hugely on ladies. Staged by the Pony Express Association, the 2014 relay began last week. In early stages, most of the jockeys were female.
“These days, association would not exist without women,” reports California president and ride Captain Rich Tatman: “Over 60 per cent of our riders are female. They’re accomplished horse people and their passion is dauntless.”
So it was that 72-year-old great-grandmother Pat Fanelli claimed precious mochila (mailbags) at H Street last week and thundered via Arcade and Carmichael toward the rider exchange at River Bend Park. She and her companion, granddaughter Jessica Sloat, crossed the American River at William Pond Park; 20 minutes before schedule.
“It was an easy ride,” she reported. “We had a nice delta breeze and flat ground; we could open up and gallop most of the six miles. That’s what the horses love.” A veteran of 13 annual reruns, the retired Sacramento District Attorney employee and 26-year-old gelding Sugar Dandy have not always enjoyed such serendipity. “One year, I did the Brockliss stretch (near Placerville),” she recalls. “We pull the mochila across the American river on a cable. It was 1:30 a.m. and pitch dark. Dandy did not expect the high-pitched cable scream and he freaked out. I ended up in a bush with two frightened horses wrapped around me. No one was hurt. It took a while for us all to calm down.”
Fanelli likens participation in the annual run to wedding prep: “You do trial runs; you’re excited for weeks in anticipation,” she says. “Then you’re all done in 20 minutes. You relive the ride mentally, over and over. These days, Facebook lets you share the experience and makes the thrill last longer.”
With Facebook, cell phones, partner riders — and a motor vehicle escort within miles of the trail — things have changed for the Pony Express. Lone 1860 riders galloped over rough trails for many miles; leaping from exhausted to fresh mounts. They carried Colt 45s and Bibles for protection. Fanelli, a volunteer with the Folsom Lake Trail Patrol, never rides alone. “Sugar Dandy looks after me and I trust him,” she explains. But I always ride with a companion; it’s a safety factor. You never know what you might meet on a trail.”
Round-the-clock, the 2014 Pony Express re-run galloped under scorching sun and moonlight – via mountain trails and on busy highways — to cross the Nevada State Line by Thursday morning last week. On Saturday, the mail was in Utah. Over 1966 miles, the path will transect eight states and weary 550 riders and mounts. Imprinted with the legendary Pony Express cancelation, mail will reach St Joseph this Saturday.
Gender aside, couriers are seldom the slender teenagers preferred by Express recruiters of yore. “At 17, you leap into the saddle at a run,” marvels ride captain Tatman. “Some older riders need help. But once mounted, they feel they can do anything. My hat’s off to them.”
This year’s re-ride marked the 154st Pony Express anniversary. A financial disaster, the 19-month service failed in a cloud of dust when telegraph lines pierced the West in 1861.
Still, the romance of its dauntless couriers lingers among urban cowboys. Says Tatman: “Everybody loves the aura of the American West. Part of everyone wants to be a cowboy.” Or a cowgirl.