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Show Wadsworths, Landale, Gray Win Ride and Tie Con and Todd Wadsworth, two young brothers from Draper, Utah and their horse Jet won the 5th Annual Park City Ride and Tie last Saturday, completing the grueling yet strikingly beautiful beau-tiful 33.6 mile mountain course in three hrs .38 min. and 10 sec. The wadsworth brothers won $6,000 top prize money at Levi's Ride and Tie nationals near San Jose, Ca., earlier this year and for their showing in Park City last Saturday received round trip tickets to London to compete in the international finals of the event in September. Con, 22 and Todd, 21, completed the race just over five minutes before second place finishers Chuck Stalley and Joaquin Leano crossed the finish line. The Stalley team finished second at the nationals and were looked at bv the Wadworth as their top competition. Todd Wadsworth told the Record he and his brother Todd had developed strategies strate-gies for the Stalley team and also for the third place finishers Phillip Wagner and Parker Davies. Wagner and Davies finished the race in 3 hrs., 46 min. 9 sec. "We watched the competition competi-tion and developed strategy that applied to several opponents,' said Wadsworth Wads-worth who added he and his brother had been training four months for the event. "Wagner and Davies put in on at first but 1 think they pushed their horse too hard trying to stay ahead of us and all we were trying to do was stay ahead of them," he , said. , Wadsworth adds much of the credit for their victory has to go to their horse Jet neighbor and then bought a horse and began taking it seriously," said the senior Wadsworth, "The next year I ran with Con and now the entire family is involved." Ralph Wadsworth and Guy Goddars finished fourth in the race and sons Kip, 16 and Ty, 14 came in sixth overall. Placing seventh overall and first in the woman's class was the team of Bev Gray of Park City and Dana Landale of Eureka, Ca.. Bev, Dana and their horse Uinta came in almost 20 minutes ahead of second place finishers Marit Glenne and Julie McKay, both of Park City. Landale joined the team at the last minute after Gray's regular partner Deb Pack broke her leg at the Levi Nationals. Bev and Deb 1 A. I 4Ua aO A prr 1 1 ( trail rz&r Sf! . t flat- J ; vTEf i 'mv:. !. v-.'V '. 'V :, yil1ir-r lijfV 4 V.'-; I f . i ii r ""l"1 "I" i ry Iji nr x ..- toon MHUt' u xxnaoxoxox : V y(tU eJt -f lU ; V , I won 0.lui net, oooooeooooao 5 T!il '' 'if J ; 1 w .y, i ' ' - K f - - : I .. ... V.- . . i- ' ir-fUi'.( '. The 33.6 mile route ride and tie participants folUwed began training for the race early in March in the snow. Although Dana had trained with the team for only a week prior to the race she said she got a lot of help from Deb. "She was there helping us train and giving us moral support," said Landale, "Basically she's one of the team". Both Landale and Gray say they developed a strategy prior to the race and stuck to it pretty much throughout. "We tried to stick close together and tied a lot and used our horse," said Gray, who admitted the ground water on the mountain made the course slippery at times but added the snow was no problem. Marit Glenne and Julie McKay were thought to be top contenders in the event and spectators at the finish line near the First Time chairlift were surprised at the distance between the two finishes. Glenne told the Record her team was riding a new horse this year that had never run the event before. She said they couldn't get their horse Star settled down at the first vet check and were held up their allowing Bev and Dana to move ahead for a large lead. "Star's a good horse and we have a lot of confidence about next year's race," Glenne said. The third place woman team was Ilona Grandison of Jackson, Wyo., and Jane Marquet from Ogden, Ut. First in the menwomen team event and 8th place overall was the team of Marilyn and Ron Whitney of Boulder, Colo. Richard Groth of Park City and Gabrilla Anderson of Ketchum, Id. were second and 12th overall and the team of Kent McLaren and Julie Cham-Please Cham-Please turn to page 8B which was in good enough shape to, "come in at the end." Teams with strong horses change riders very frequently so the running member and rider are always close together and the horse gets little rest. "It's absolutely the hardest thing I've ever done in my I life," said Wadsworth who admitted the Park City I course was much harder than I at the nationals. "Sometimes "Some-times it doesn't seem to make sense and you think you'll just stop and walk the rest of the way, but you I always seem to get a lift or I burst of energy towards the end and keep going," he added. Wadsworth said he got his "lift" from the 1 beauty of the , course. "I really got a lift coming down I through the pines," he said, 'The trail ran alongside a creek and the whole thing 1 seemed to give me a burst of I energy." I Wadsworth said he was J conscious of the competition throughout the race but breathed easier after the last J of three required vet checks. 1 At the vet checks team crew I members must bring the I horse's pulse and respiration . I down to 60 before the vet on I hand will allow the race to I continue. At the last vet check I Wadsworth ran into the I station before the Stalley' s LI horse and rider. "At that J point I was pretty sure we 1 had won," Wadsworth said, "But you never know and I just kept pushing." A The team of Con and Todd J Wadsworth was one of three VI teams entered by the family ; 1 that ran their first ride and J tie in Park City in 1978. The I family's interest in the sport is generated by the father, Ralph, who said he first Vl heard about the event from a neighbor. "I ran the first year with my More Ride and Tie i Continued from Page 7B bcrs of Park City took third in the race and 16th overall. In the women's competition, competit-ion, Pam Sandberg and Jesse Whitmore of Park City were 24th, and Vicki Ross and Mary Cqehlo were 23rd from Park City. In the menwomen competition, compe-tition, Bonnie Bedford and Packy Longfellow were 33rd riding their mule named Felix and Steve Holcomb of Park City and Rozenn Ste-phan Ste-phan of Lerhcu, France, finished 30th. In men's competition, Kent Clausen of Park City and Glen Pyne of La Habra, Ca., placed 19th and Terry Orme of Salt Lake and Jim Orme of Park City finished-11th. "l ni hi . in. nun. m i i mi .in i i. I in. mi i .in i ! m iniiiiJ -ii 4 il J y . j f : - - lu n mwJ v " I ," ii" "'"1 . . ' ,- .v x x . j i ' . :v : ' x s " - - I .,;. x t . x 1 Beverly Gray, Dana Landale and Uinta head for the finish line t r:v.ii:-.:.j:,::A? t if 's ; i I ; . I j 1 " ii" ' "i i"i khlimiimm,MX!SlM1Wi&. " W,)iV lb iMMMTii'L I n ' ' I Bluegrass music livened the scene Bev and Dana share victory with Deb pack center. Deb was Bev's former partner who broke her leg at Levi Nationals earlier this summer .X- :,,::aifQ: -Xli&A. I V . 'tX - - i!.-fw ' TimM Wads worth, left and brother Con fright), men's team ride and tie winners. |