On the trail

EAST COUNTY — The first year Mike Harrison brought his children along for the Florida Cracker Trail Association’s annual cross-state ride, they came back sunburned, bleached, wrinkled, cracked and blistered.

“And they still wanted to go back,” he said. “They loved not taking a shower.”

Harrison has now brought all eight of his children along for the ride, although never all at the same time.
This week, when Harrison gets up, he gets to see one of his favorite sights once again — 130 horses, mist in their noses, as the sun rises behind them along the Florida Cracker Trail.

On Feb. 14, Harrison, 54, and three of his children saddled their horses and headed across the state for the weeklong ride.

The ride is a 110-mile re-enactment of Florida cattlemen driving their herds from west of Fort Pierce to Bradenton and then to Punta Rassa, to ship them to Cuba. The trail was the only dry route across Florida.
The ride now runs from east Bradenton to Fort Pierce with no cattle accompanying riders.

“It kind of gets into you,” said Harrison. The East County resident is riding the trail for his 22nd year. “It’s really an endurance ride, but it connects you to your history. That’s important to me because it connects you to the past.

“I taught my kids those roads we drive on — they were all made by the feet of horses and cattle,” he said.

Harrison has taken all eight of his children — four of whom are biological and four of whom he raised — over the years. This year, he and his three youngest — Makayla, Jarred and Marrisa — took five of their 12 horses — Bob, Blue, Josey, Smoke and Dudley. Friends are riding another two, Jet and Blue.

Even before Harrison left on the ride with his youngest three Feb. 14, Jarred and Marissa already were planning their 2016 ride.

Makayla agrees she won’t easily give up the experience.

“I like the history of it,” she said. “I like being able to get away with my horse.”

A taste of history
Mike Harrison rode the Florida Cracker Trail for the first time in 1993 with his best friend, Keith Thurber, with whom he’d worked cattle.

“We decided to scope it out for the girls,” Harrison said. “We did it, and it stuck. It was wonderful.”

As a child growing up in Sarasota, Harrison knew people who lived in the 1800s. He’d heard stories of their families driving cattle across the state.

A farrier since 1992, Harrison said the event reminded him that cowboys once rode the same roads he drove for a living. He admired the resilience of people who could still do it.

“It could become a way of life instantly,” Harrison said. “It connects you to your history and to your horse and to your horsemanship. Horses now are used mostly for pleasure, but they were working animals. Everything’s based on horsepower.”

Learning curve
One of Harrison’s favorite memories on the trail happened in 1993. He rode a horse named C.J.
He and other riders were in Hardee County when they came off a dirt ledge. At the bottom was a slough. Harrison expected to cross easily.

But as he and his horse went in, she sunk farther and farther until C.J. was bogged down to her chest. She’d found an exact dip in the slough. Harrison stepped out of the stirrups on either side of her onto muddy, but solid ground.

“My saddle had slid all the way to the back,” Harrison said. “It was like (C.J) was 2 feet tall. That was the first mishap. Me and Keith were there to have fun. We realized why they have rules.”

Harrison still laughs thinking about the funniest memory he has of the trail.

A man was riding with him and Thurber when they approached a creek in Fort Basinger with water so clear they could see grass at the bottom.

“It gives the appearance you can walk right through it,” Harrison said.

But, he knew better. He and Thurber estimated the grass alone was 6 feet tall and the water was about 2 feet deep. They warned the man not to walk through it, but he did.

“He said, ‘I know what I’m doing; you can’t tell me what to do,’” Harrison recalled. “We saw his hat floating that day.”

The cracker way
Life on the trail is tough physically both for riders and horses.

Riders are in the saddle between five and eight hours daily and travel an average of 20 miles.

Some years, horses die because the stress is too much.

“We have safety measures in place, but sometimes a horse has a condition you can’t see until it’s too late,” he said, adding it’s the owner’s responsibility to make sure horses are fit enough for the challenge.

Harrison’s family and horses are accustomed to endurance rides because they usually ride about four hours on Saturdays and on some evenings during the week, at places like Gilley Creek in Myakka or Deer Prairie in Venice.

Harrison said the long rides are, in part, to prepare the horses for their annual cross-state journey, but mostly because he and his family just love to ride.

New attitude
Although the route is the same, the Florida Cracker Trail ride has evolved over the years. Harrison doesn’t like all the changes, such as required catered meals, but he can’t imagine not doing the ride.

“There’s some hard-core people and some along for the ride,” Harrison says. “There’s no glory in it for us. Either you love it, or you don’t.”

“I’m a horseman,” he said. “It’s just a way of remembering.”

By the numbers
110 - Total miles

20 - Miles per day

6.5 - Average time in the saddle daily

Daily schedule
7:15-7:45 a.m. — Ride registration

6-7 a.m. — Breakfast

8 a.m. — Ride out. Rigs packed and ready to move.

Noon — Lunch on the trail. Rigs moved.

Afternoon — Water breaks; snack and port-o-lets available.

5 to 6 p.m. — Ride registration

6 to 7 p.m. — Dinner

7 p.m. to bedtime — Evening activities