He’s now better known as the father of ultramarathoning.įor Gordy, much as for Wendell, the Western States started with a horse. That’s how the Western States 100 trail ride - now know as the Tevis Cup - began.Īnd this is where I should probably mention that Gordy Ainsleigh isn’t just an old friend of Wendell Robie’s. "But then so many people said, ‘God, if I thought you had any chance at all, I would have come with you.’ " "Wendell only planned to do it once," Gordy adds. "And one of the guys said, ‘Ah, you can't compare that to the great horses of the last century.’ And Wendell says, ‘Well, what could they do that my horse can't?’ And the guy said, ‘Well, they could go a hundred miles over mountains and desert.’ And so Wendell said, ‘Well, what about mountains and canyons?’ And so, he got a few of his friends together. "Wendell was bragging about what a great horse he had," Gordy says. Gordy recalls sitting around the campfire on the last night of the trip. In 1954, Wendell was camping with the Sacramento Horsemen’s Association at Robinson Flat, 30 miles west of Lake Tahoe. Gordy was a friend of Wendell’s back in the day. "He's strong, he's wiry and he wears cowboy boots. "Wendell's a little guy," says Gordon Ainsleigh, who most people call Gordy. And it’s true - tens of thousands of people every year run 50, 100 and even 1,000 miles over rough terrain because of that man and his nonexistent horse.īut the story of ultramarathoning actually begins with another man - named Wendell Robie - and another horse. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the modern-day sport of trail ultramarathoning began 45 years ago when a man showed up to a 100-mile horse race - without a horse.Īn ultramarathon is defined as anything longer than 26.2 miles. This story was re-broadcast on our 8/8/20 episode. (Jeffrey Genova) This article is more than 3 years old.
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