Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

Woodley Ultra Society (WUS) member Mike Bonfatto, best known as the 2022 WUS Rookie of the Year and 2024 Donut Run DFL, joined Martha and Nora in a special WUS-edition audio recording to tell the story of his foray into “ride ‘n’ tie” at the 2025 World Ride N Tie Championship.

Audio recording (20 min, 55 sec, short version, edited by Martha and Bjorn; long version available at the end of the blog; music by Paula Cole “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone”)

The “Dream Team”: Martha, “Dream,” Nora and Mike (left to right)
Cowboy Mike “at least I wasn’t the one in the ambulance” Bonfatto survives his first ride n tie on Dream

The GoPro video Cowboy Mike sent us from his Bolivia ride in 2014 impressed me and Nora enough to convince us Mike could ride n tie.

Ride N Tie involves trail riding and running. Barb rides her bay Arabian mare FYF Riding Under the Influence (aka “Dream”) in the World Championship Long Course.
Dream is unimpressed with Mike pretending to be hard.
Rick Noer won the Equathon blind date lottery when I paired him up with Mike, who crushed the 8-mile trail run so their team could finish 2nd (out of 22 teams).
Nora, Martha, and Chris
Chris, Kelly and Comet win the Long Course World Championship

The longer “Director’s Cut” version of the audio recording that Mike “edited” is available here.