Horses to race again along Santa Fe Trail

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Rob Phillips still remembers his first horse, a paint named Mickey he got more than 50 years ago. It was the start of a lifelong love affair with horses that's led to plans for an endurance race over the Santa Fe Trail.

For the past year, the 62-year-old retired real estate developer and his wife, Beverly, have been putting together The Great Santa Fe Trail Horse Race. It starts Sept. 3 in Santa Fe, N.M., and ends Sept. 15 in Missouri, broken down into 10 rides of about 50 miles a day over 515 miles.

Phillips got the idea after hearing the story of Francis X. Aubry, a trader who in 1848 made a $1,000 bet that he could traverse the trail from Santa Fe to its start in Independence, Mo., in six days. He took five days and 16 hours to cover the 800-mile route that normally took a month and established a record that stands to this day.

"When I heard that story, I thought we've got to do something about the Santa Fe Trail and get the world excited about it again," Phillips said.

So he came up with the endurance ride which will follow the wide, meandering trail. The riders will cover the sweeping landscape of open prairies and rolling plains that greeted travelers heading west with trade goods or in search of a better place to live.

"It will always be near to what we consider the trail. We're in real close proximity and I doubt we'll spend a night on land that wasn't camped on by people in covered wagons," Phillips said.

Spectators will be encouraged to turn out to greet the riders at "race villages" where participants and their horses will spend the night in 11 locations across New Mexico and Kansas. Phillips said he expects more than 100,000 people in total will be on hand to watch as the competitors arrive.

The Santa Fe Trail opened in 1821 when Missouri trader William Becknell became the first to use it to haul goods by mule train to Santa Fe, then part of Mexico.

Although some settlers used the trail, it primarily was a trade route for bringing manufactured goods to Santa Fe and taking silver and other valuables back to Missouri. By 1880, the trail was eclipsed by the railroads and only the wagon ruts remained.

"It set up a new excitement about trading and the expansion in the West," said Rita Napier, University of Kansas history professor. "It represents a reaching out to expand."