He is a father, so he is overprotective. Part of the job description. Especially since he has a daughter. Especially if that daughter keeps asking to compete in ride and tie, a grueling, two-person team endurance race combining trail running and horseback riding.

Starting at age 10, Sara Howard would ask, and her father, Jim, would put her off. Not ready yet. Dangerous sport, this ride and tie, in which a team of two trade off running and riding a horse in what essentially is a game of equine leapfrog. The start alone, all those stampeding hooves, can end in disaster. Better to wait until you're older. How old? Well, Dad'll be the judge of that.

"Mostly, I was just teasing him when I was small," Sara recalled. "But as I got older, I was like, 'I'm serious, Dad.' He said, 'Safety, safety.' He was all, like, 'It's crazy. You're going to get hurt.' But I've been riding since I was, you know, 6. I was, like, 'Really, I'm fine.' "

Few in the ride and tie and ultrarunning communities would begrudge Jim Howard's judgment. In his younger years, Howard was an Olympic Trials marathoner and a two-time winner of the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Run. And, at 56, he's the most celebrated ride and tie competitor ever, winner of an unprecedented 11 world championships and 13 other top-three finishes.

So the only second-guessing about Howard's decision to delay his only daughter's introduction to the sport came from inside the family's own Applegate (El Dorado County) home. Family matriarch Elaine, a ride and tie competitor herself, sided with Sara. But, as she good-naturedly noted, Jim can be as hardheaded as he is hard-nosed out on the trail.

Finally – finally! – he relented. And, in the 2008 ride and tie world championships in Taylorsville (Plumas County), then-15-year-old Sara lined up on the starting line aboard Magic Sirocco while partner Jim stood beside her to take the first turn running.

The plan was, Sara and Sirocco would hold back at the start and let the thundering hoofbeats of competitors recede in the distance ahead before loosening the reins. Elaine, on her mount, was enlisted (against her objections) as something of a chaperone for Sara and Sirocco – at least until the first "tie," when she'd switch and Jim would ride, a mile or so down the trail.

Even with that self-imposed handicap, father and daughter Howard easily won the 2008 title – Sara becoming the youngest winner ever and only the third woman to win world championship in the sport's 41-year history.

Interviewed by reporters afterward, Jim Howard was relieved and elated, in that order, saying, "It was nerve-racking for me as a parent."

His anxiety has eased in the years since. Howard pere and fille finished second in the 2009 world championships, bounced back for the win last year and head into the June 18 world championships at Humboldt Redwoods State Park as prohibitive favorites.

Which should not surprise, given the family pedigree. Jim, who took early retirement from the California Conservation Corps and coaches Colfax High School distance runners, remains one of the nation's top age-group distance runners. He's entered in four events at the Masters World Track and Field Championships in Sacramento July 6-17. Sara is a member of the American River College track and cross-country teams and, in her spare times, dabbles in endurance riding.

It would be easy, if slightly inaccurate, to presume the two were alike, but that's true only physically. Both have tall, lanky, lithe runner's frames with nary an ounce of excess body fat.

Personality-wise? Elaine let loose a long, lusty cackle at the suggestion that her husband and daughter share the same traits.

"He's a total obsessive micromanager, and she's more fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants," Elaine said. "I'm the counselor in the middle. I'll say to Sara, 'Don't worry about him. Just let him be. He hates leaving anything to chance.'

"It's all out of love and concern, of course. It's his innate protectiveness."

It's also no small part of what makes Jim Howard so successful. He defends his attention to detail and previous reluctance to let Sara compete as prudence rather than overprotectiveness.

"That's the key to ride and tie – to have a plan and execute it," he said. "It's not necessarily the fastest team that wins; it's the smartest."

That philosophy extends to perhaps the most important member of the Howard team – Magic Sirocco, a 16-year-old Arabian who has six world championship victories under his saddle. Jim treated him much like he did his daughter. They only race him twice a year – an endurance tune-up competition in the spring and the June world championships.

"We like to get to race day sound," he said. "I like to not push the horse too hard because of the longevity factor. Other top horses are a flash in the pan. They race and then they're done. I'm very careful with him."

Which might be one reason Jim was initially reluctant to team with Sara. Although Sara had been Sirocco's primary training rider before 2008, Jim still balked.

"I ride with her when she's on Sirocco, so I know how good she is," Elaine said. "But to him, training is a controlled environment and not the same as racing. In reality, Sara knows Sirocco a gazillion times better than he does."

Jim Howard has mostly come around to that way of thinking. Sara, after all, has proven herself in the heat of competition. Plus, he needs Sara to do the bulk of the riding, especially during training, because his right knee is missing a chunk of cartilage after years of ultrarunning injuries.

"The more riding I do, the more my knee hurts," he said. "It's OK when I'm running. But when I'm posting (in the stirrups), it's bone-on-bone rubbing. It's like a jab."

That's one reason Jim does most of the running during competitions. In the 2008 race, Sara ran only about 14 miles of the 40 total. But, as Sara has become a stronger runner and proven herself, Jim is re-evaluating the strategy.

"She can't beat me (running) yet, but it's getting close," he said. "Give her a another year or two. And she's getting to know ride and tie (strategy) really well. If things go wrong, she can make a decision, and it's usually the right one."

Sara laughed when it was suggested that her dad now trusts her.

"Well, he's starting to," she said. "He has a hard time."

Dennis Rinde, who was Howard's ride and tie partner from 1996 to 2004, considers Howard a stickler for details.

"He was always extremely well prepared and especially looked out for the horses," said Rinde, who lives in Santa Cruz. "When we didn't win, it wasn't because of strategy or lack of preparation. I think he brought that from ultrarunning."

Howard's background as an ultrarunner has served him well over the years. He's fitter than nearly any horseman out there, and over the years has learned to be a competent horseman despite not growing up in an equine environment.

He grew up in Elk Grove, where his father raised heifers and Holstein cattle, and always wanted a horse. He found he was talented enough in running to compete for California State University, Sacramento, and then began a marathon career after that. As a sidelight, though, he started taking free riding lessons from Loomis stable owner Theresa Haney, in exchange for teaming with her in his first ride and tie world championship in 1980 (a 16th-place finish), the same year he ran in the U.S. Olympic marathon trials.

Jim was hooked. The next year, with a new partner, he won his world title.

In all, 1981 was an amazing year for Howard. In May, he won the American River 50 Mile Run and the Avenue of the Giants marathon. He won the world ride and tie title six days before winning the Western States 100. Then, in July, he was one of the top finishers in the San Francisco Marathon, in 2 hours, 19 minutes.

Rinde and others credit Howard's mental toughness and pain endurance as reasons for his continued success. That was never more evident than in Howard's 2006 ride and tie victory, coming seven months after he nearly died in a tree-cutting accident at home. An 18-foot branch speared him, caving in his rib cage, puncturing his lungs, spleen, intestines and left kidney.

Elaine has noted this ironic dichotomy about her husband: He's so careful about his daughter and horse, yet pushes his own body beyond limits. But, at least with Sara, he's starting to loosen the reins.

"She's a tough kid, too," Elaine said. "Two years ago (in competition), she had blood running down her leg. And, to Jim, that was like, 'OK, maybe you are tough.' "

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