NDL Emblem- Wraff's Little Buddy

NDL Emblem (*Enoss x *Etyka)

Grey, arab gelding, born 2/16/84

In the fall of 1990, my friend Laurie realized she needed a new horse to ride endurance. As luck would have it, another friend of mine had the perfect horse for Laurie.

Emblem was a wonderful, pure Polish gelding that my friend's son had been riding. He'd already done some endurance & was honest on the trail. He wasn't a very forward horse, but he would steadily trot on down the trail. Laurie went to look at him &, realizing he was just what she was looking for, bought Emblem.

I had met Laurie at a ride in Feb 1989. At the time she was trying to get into endurance on a horse not suited for work. We only rode a few miles together that day but we instantly became friends. To this day Laurie is my BFF. When she started riding Emblem we did a lot of conditioning together. It wasn't long before Wraff & Emblem became BFF's as well. We rode a lot of endurance rides together. We endured all types of weather, all manner of footing, easy & hard rides. I'm sure Wraff & Emblem got tired of hearing us sing The Ant Song umpteen times over the miles & years.

Emblem was a lazy horse, preferring to stay home & eat instead of going for long rides. He really didn't like the work involved in endurance riding. But he was also a very easy going & wanting to please horse who did the work because Laurie asked it of him. He was a tough little horse with a huge heart. He kept up with the bigger horses & even finished ahead of many because he was so steady. He might not have had the biggest or fastest trot, but he'd hold that steady trot all day long. I was there when Emblem carried Laurie through the ride of her dreams, Tevis. The granddaddy of all endurance rides, 100 miles in one day from south of Truckee to Auburn. It's some of the most difficult trail in the world. More than once that plucky little gelding finished Tevis, a ride many horses never manage to complete. Emblem also finished the Virginia City 100 more than once. He really was a little Energizer Bunny on the trail.

Laurie & Emblem were with us the day Wraff slid in the mud on his belly, me tangled in the infamous yellow slicker. We were together in the sleet & freezing weather of the Scotts Flat 50, me using my down vest to keep Wraff warm while I turned blue. We rode in the rain at Derby Ditch, the heat at NASTR, & in the dark on many rides. It was with Emblem that Wraff decided to show me that I could NOT ride him in a halter, even after 50 miles. Those 2 boys were in a trot away race with Laurie & I hanging on. That was the last time either of us tried to ride in just halters. Emblem was there when Wraff finished his 6000th mile. Together the buddies were at shotgun starts, crossing rivers & climbing mountains. As Wraff aged & I slowed him down, I could no longer camp next to our BFFs. I had to hide Wraff so he wouldn't see his little buddy at the start of a ride.

The ride that sticks in our minds as the best testament to the bond between Wraff & Emblem was The Mustang Classic in San Jose. Laurie was going to ride faster & I was going to ride Wraff with the plan of taking the entire day. He was in his 20s & needed to slow down (or at least that's what I thought). What a bronc Wraff was that morning. In a temper tantrum he even threw himself on the ground, me still in the saddle, scaring riders behind us. We kept going, compromising on a booming trot instead of an all out gallop. As we were coming in to the first vet check I saw our BFFs coming out of the check, up the hill toward us. I jumped off Wraff & threw my shirt (I had a t-shirt on as well) over Wraff's head, hoping he wouldn't realize we were passing Emblem. It still cracks us up at all the riders that day who thought I had come up with an ingenious way to lower my horse's pulse. A few miles out of the vet check we caught up with our BFFs. Laurie said Emblem was dogging it, not wanting to go, acting like he was tired. I said Wraff was on fire & hard to control. But once they were together they settled into their buddy system of going down the trail. We rode the remaining 30 miles with happy horses.

Eventually Emblem started to have some slight metabolic problems. Sometimes it wasn't much more than knowing he just wasn't right. He had some problems with lack of gut sounds at rides, which can lead to catastrophic colic. His sheath would swell to massive proportions. Finally his disposition changed. Wraff's little buddy shocked him one day when Emblem attacked with heels & teeth. Laurie & I were shocked. This just wasn't right for sweet Emblem. Finally she took him to UCDavis. They ran tests & determined that he had raging testosterone. WHAT? He was a gelding. Upon palpation they could feel what they thought was a retained testicle. When they performed surgery what they actually found was swelling on the end of the severed cord. They had no answer for why this was but they did determine he wasn't a cryptorchid (a stallion with a testicle retained in the abdomen). They could find no reason for the elevated testosterone levels. He retired from endurance in 1996, at the age of 12. He had completed over 2500 miles, covering some of the roughest terrain in endurance.

Emblem went on to be the companion & pet of a woman battling terminal cancer. No horse could have asked for a better retirement. He had a new barn, grassy pasture, lots of treats, & someone who doted on him. He was her light, & reason for being.

Those years of miles & trails riding with our BFFs were the best of times.