Saddled With Dedication Riders Leave Trail Of Goodwill In Fight To Beat Cancer

It’s not the years, it’s the miles.

Four Spokane cowboys are more than 1,200 miles older after riding across nearly three states to fight cancer.

The “Horsebackers against Cancer” should cross into Spokane County sometime Thursday after almost three months of bad weather and worse.

“They’ve had snow, rain, everything,” says wife Bert Thrasher, whose husband, Phil, organized the trip.

Phil Thrasher is joined by Ron Knudsen, 60, Darrell Howard, 79, and Jim Brookover, 53. The men organized the ride to raise money for cancer research, figuring at least a dozen relatives among them have died from the disease.

The group left Spokane in March with four horses, two mules and two campers. Daryl Hatten, 71, joined at the last minute as a support driver and rider.

Thrasher, 75, had a broken leg when the men departed. He put spurs on his running shoes because his ankles were too swollen for cowboy boots.

Tales from the road sound like high adventure. In the mountains of California, the riders faced 8- to 10-foot snowdrifts where they had to walk the horses to break the path. The state wouldn’t let them ride on the highways because of icy conditions.

The men have taken turns riding, except for Knudsen, who has ridden the entire trip. A strong wind midtrip blew Knudsen’s hat off and, with it, one of his hearing aids. He removed the other for safekeeping.

Bert Thrasher added that in California at one point, the camper was blown over into the ditch in a 90-mph wind and got a hole in it.

At least two horses had to come home, including one 24-year-old horse that developed saddle sores.

In John Day, Ore., Thrasher was pawed in the face by a replacement mare and wound up with a broken dental plate and 27 stitches in and around his mouth, his wife said. He kept going.

“Everybody is doing fine,” Thrasher said.

Knudsen is still carrying notes from people from his Spokane Valley Church of the Nazarene who lost family and friends to cancer.

“It reminds me of why I’m doing this. It is so much bigger than any one of us,” he told a newspaper in Walla Walla.

A fund-raising dinner for 140 in Lakeview, Ore., raised nearly $700, family members report. The men also got the red carpet treatment in Pendleton, Ore., and Walla Walla.

The four men crossed into Washington state from Milton-Freewater and reached Walla Walla June 2.

They expect to reach Colfax today, Rosalia on Tuesday and Cheney on Thursday.

On Friday, they plan to ride into the main entrance of the Spokane Interstate Fairgrounds at 1 p.m. The public is invited.

4-H clubs will sponsor a two-day rest. Cancer Patient Care and horse leaders from 4-H are planning special activities.

A potluck is also scheduled at the Fairgrounds Saturday at 11:30 a.m.

They’ll resume the trip June 14 en route to Deer Park, then Chewelah, Colville, Kettle Falls and expect to finish June 20 at Laurier.

The trek has raised thousands of dollars, but even the riders don’t know how much because donors have been asked to send their checks directly to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. Money raised in California and Oregon was sent to research centers in those states.