CLARKSTON — Danny Godfrey isn't a big history buff. He doesn't know many details about the Pony Express, he said. He does know the mail service didn't last long. But for him, and maybe lots of people, the words "Pony Express" somehow symbolize the Old West.
Of course Godfrey knows something most historians don't know about the Pony Express, because Godfrey knows how it feels to ride.
He knows how it feels to gallop a strong horse over a dirt trail on a sunny summer day. He knows the thrill of speed and the satisfaction of passing the mail bag to another rider and watching that horse take off with the dust rising. He knows the risks, too, of making such a ride. In fact, Godfrey raced Pony Express-style, in Clarkston, last weekend.
Twenty-some years ago, in Clarkston, Cache County, a family named Clark started a Pony Express Days race. They never pretended that their race was a re-enactment, because Clarkston is far north of where the real Pony Express trail came through the state.
The people of Clarkston plotted their own route: a 30-mile course from Idaho running south, through the mountains, to their own town square. Teams of 10 were invited to enter. The prize was a belt buckle. Several times, over the years, a Godfrey family team — brothers, cousins, fathers, grandfathers — won those buckles.
Eventually, however, public interest waned. Last year, the Clarkston City Council decided not to fund a race.
"It was almost depressing," says Troy Godfrey, Danny's distant cousin. Troy couldn't stand the thought of a Clarkston Pony Express Days without mail bags, without horses flying across the fields. Last year's Pony Express days featured a lawn-mower race and kid's sheep-riding contest, he said. He knew he had to do something.
So Troy and Danny Godfrey, and their friend Randall Apgood decided to head up a new kind of race. The horses would still run 3 miles each, they decided, but they'd run in a big square, and the mail-bag exchange would take place in front of a viewing stand, so spectators could see it. They decided each team would use only one saddle, and exchange that as well.
Four five-person teams signed up, including the team from Clarkston, featuring Troy, Danny, and two more Godfreys and a Clark.
Then came Saturday, race day, and an event that was just about as Western as anyone could wish for.
About 100 spectators parked in a pasture, bought a soft drink from a boy stationed at a cooler and took their seats on the metal bleachers. An announcer named Brayden Goodey, with a down-home Utah accent, reminded everyone of the rules.
To the riders: "If you cut the corner and you can get your horse shut down and come back and take the corner, that's fine."
To the spectators: "No whoopin' or hollerin' " (He didn't want the horses spooked.)
To everyone: "If you see a horse that happens to be hurt, don't get in a big ol' panic because we do have a vet."
Then, sans whooping, the first four horses took off. They were out of sight in seconds. Race officials stationed at the first corner called Goodey with the updates. "Corrine's in the lead," he announced. "Clarkston's way in the back."
Spectators strained to see the horses round the second bend. There were two, close together. And then a third. And then Goodey voiced what everyone was beginning to wonder about: "I don't see the green rider."
He was talking about the first rider for the Manti team, a woman named Anna Gill, who happens to work for the Deseret Morning News. And suddenly, there was her horse, racing riderless across the fields, disappearing in the general direction of Logan. "Looks like we are a three-horse race now," said Goodey. He kept his voice dry and droll, free of anxiety.
The veterinarian took off in his truck, headed for the corner a mile off, the place where Gill had fallen. People in the stands murmured in concern. One man said, "I'd be glad to have a vet, they know general medicine."
The saddle exchange between the first three went smoothly. Soon, "Willard has a pretty good lead," said Goodey as the team's second rider barreled toward the stands, where the third Willard rider stood ready. Clarkston came in next and left in the lead after a swift saddle swap.
"We won't divulge any secrets, but Clarkston has the saddle exchange down . . . That last exchange took roughly 20 seconds," Goodey announced.
Clarkston riders were obviously the announcer's favorite, but also had to take his ribbing. At one point Goodey said, "Looks like his nerve got the best of him and he is no longer behind."
The race lasted 39 minutes, most of them wild. Several riders went neck and neck for a mile. Twice more the vet went out, as two different horses on the Willard team came up lame. One seemed badly hurt, and Willard was out of the race on the final lap.
The happiest moment of the race came 13 minutes into it, after paramedics had arrived, when Goodey announced that Gill was fine and being taken to the hospital for "precautionary measures." The only rider to fall, she'd been the only one wearing a helmet.
In the end, Clarkston won.
What makes the Pony Express race meaningful is that it takes so much work, said Troy Godfrey. "Months of training and care into the horse." Vitamins. Diet. Rides in the mountains to build stamina. And then all the practising of the saddle exchange.
How much harder it was for the real Pony Express riders, Danny Godfrey said, "I can only imagine. They would run them much further than three miles. Running through stuff that was pretty rugged." Including deep snow.
Troy Godfrey doesn't know exactly how it was to have been a Pony Express rider, but he thinks he understands something of the attraction. Nothing quite like the power of a fast horse. Nothing else quite like "sitting on a 1,200 pound animal that wants to run."
E-MAIL: susan@desnews.com