AndyMangels.com: JUST OUT Information

Out On The Range: Long Distance Racer Shows Horse Sense      One more movie cliché is about to be punctured. You know the scene in most westerns or period films where someone rides a horse for miles and miles, generally to save a loved one from a dire fate?

     "It doesn't happen that way," says DeWayne Brown, an openly gay, award-winning horseman who has logged more than 8,000 miles in horse races throughout the United States. He says horses ridden that hard wouldn't make it; they would stop themselves before exhaustion set in. "Most horses are very governed."

     Now living in Northwest Portland, Brown hails from rural Sweet Home, where he got to know horses from a very early age. "I was born on a horse," he jokes. "My mother has pictures of her on a horse, pregnant with me. My grandfather built a special saddle when I was old enough to hold on myself, to strap on behind my mother. I was riding that before I was even a year old."

     When he was 9, Brown started "breaking" horses-training wild undomesticated horses to get used to human touch and riders. He then started training professionally as a rider when he was 13 and soon showed his pet quarterhorse on the circuit.

     Today, Brown is heavily involved in a sport known as endurance racing. "My grandfather started the very first endurance race in the Northwest in 1964, so I was kind of born into the sport."

     Brown describes it as a "long-distance marathon race for horses…anywhere from 50 to 100 miles in a one-day event. One horse, one rider, for that entire distance. A fast 50-mile race can be won in four hours or under; a fast 100-mile race can be run in around nine hours. They're cross-country races. There are no jumps involved, just a marked course through the mountains or sometimes flat deserts."

     For the animal lovers among Just Out readers, Brown cautions against fears that the horses are being abused. "You don't run. It's like a marathon. It's very much pacing. Horses average around 10 miles an hour for a long trot and canter."

     The sport also is strictly monitored, with veterinarian checkpoints at least every 25 miles. If the horses are limping then, they're removed, and if they're limping at the finish line, the riders are disqualified. "That helps keep people in check from overriding their horses. The real object is to have a sound horse at the finish line."

     Although he rides one of his five horses in races, Brown recently retired his 12-year-old Arabian. "He was just short of 3,000 miles. It was much more important for me to have the horse sound and happy and live a long life than it was to do racing."

     So is there a gay group of endurance riders? "I'm kind of the lone sheep in the Northwest," Brown says. "There are several other gay people who do ride [elsewhere]."

     He adds that the winningest solo rider ever of the world championships is a lesbian. As for himself, Brown is out to his fellow racers but jokes that he doesn't have a rainbow sticker on the rear of his horse.

     Although the United States has a large gay rodeo scene, he isn't directly involved in that sport. Because he makes his living as a massage therapist, Brown doesn't want to risk incapacitating himself.

     "Rodeo didn't have as much of a draw for me because I want to keep my body in one piece," he says with a smile. "And I don't find riding bulls and broncos adds longevity to the body." Still, he attends many gay rodeos and often works setting up the arena and helping on the support crew.

     Brown, who is single, acknowledges the horses sometimes can get in the way of his love life. "Working with horses is an extremely demanding sport/hobby/job. You can't just say, 'Oh, I'll take care of you later,' because we've domesticated them and made them dependent on us. Several times I've had people feel that they came in second to the horses. It's difficult to have someone who is not what we call 'horsey' and have them understand the requirement that horses take."

     Brown just has put on an endurance race in a state park near Redmond. He's also trying to get sponsorship to ride in the 2001 re-enactment of the original Pony Express race. "It's 2,000 miles, all the way from St. Jude, Mo., to Sacramento, Calif. It will be run in a succession of eight one-week races."

     So what does Brown get out of racing? "You do not win money, you do not win fame and fortune. You do it because you enjoy it."

     Still, he's looking to meet other gay riders in the area for camaraderie or more. "I'd definitely enjoy somebody who was into the horse world." Until then, like the lone cowboy, he's always got his horse.

     To find out more about endurance racing, contact DeWayne Brown at dwhorseman@juno.com.

     Andy Mangels is a longtime Portland entertainment writer with three books and hundreds of comic books and magazine articles to his credit. You can write him at andy@andymangels.com.