Endurance Riding

I woke up on January 6^th and decided to make the commitment to train for endurance. My New Year’s Resolution. This would be our first day of training. I decided to ride English, saddling Asali in my Pessoa. I wore my new breeches and tall boots and my purple vest to match Asali’s purple Nurtural bitless bridle and her purple saddle pad. My theory in every competition has always been that if I don’t win, I will at least look good trying!

A sunny day for our first day of training in the Pessoa and Nurtural.

We left for Stirling City around 11 am. We hadn’t been riding for more than 15 minutes when we came to a couple of huge trees blocking our trail. Unfortunately, the trees were not safe to jump and there was no way around them. It would have been more dangerous to go up into the side of the mountain, or down around the trees rather than to just navigate through them. I dismounted and used the trail knife I had just gotten for Christmas to cut away some of the branches. Once I cleaned up the branches, I guided Asali over them. She had to put her front legs between two logs, then maneuver her back legs over the first log, then get her front legs over the last log. It was a bit tricky and it took about 20 minutes of coaxing and guiding to get her to do it. (I used one of the tree branches as a carrot stick.)

After that mess, I decided to walk aways before remounting. That was difficult in my tall field boots (made for riding, not hiking) with the snow and ice. I slipped and landed on my bottom 3 different times. But Asali never ran me over and after I remounted, it was a pretty easy ride to Stirling City, although we couldn’t move out very fast because of the ground conditions – where it wasn’t icy, the ground was covered in thick, slippery mud.

We didn’t stay in Stirling City long because Asali was making a fuss when I tied her to a tree. She was snorting and pacing around it, and digging. This behavior is unlike her, as she normally ties well. The only thing I could think was that she didn’t like being left alone.

As I was leading Asali out to the trail to find a place to remount, I decided to do a little of the circling game with her because she was becoming increasingly difficult to handle… when Asali gets excited, she can act extremely high strung. Sometimes I think she’s an Arab, not a Missouri Fox Trotter. During the circling game, Asali slipped in the mud, and I saw my sure-footed horse fall. I decided to lead her for awhile after that because the ground was so unstable. I walked, leading her, for about 4 miles before remounting. I let her run almost all the way home. She jumped a log as if it was a 5 foot fence and we completed our 14 mile ride in 4 hours, certainly not a record time.

Ready to go with our dog in tow!

I have never been one for New Year’s Resolutions. Every year, I have that thought, “If I was going to make a New Year’s Resolution, I would…” But I never commit to anything.

This year, however, I did make a New Year’s Resolution, although it was a little late. Better late than never, though, right? I was sitting in front of my computer on the 3^rd or 4^th of January, Googling “Tevis Cup.”

I’ve never been interested in endurance riding. I grew up as a hunter jumper rider and always felt most comfortable in the arena. It wasn’t until 2009 when I began trail riding. A friend of a friend said she needed help exercising her two mares. I agreed and started riding Asali, a Missouri Fox Trotter. Asali was Parelli trained and it was a whole new thing for me to be riding bareback and bitless, let alone being out on the trail that way. But, it turned out I loved it. And just a few months after I first began riding Asali, her owner, Jennifer Ferrini, offered her up to me. While Asali had never originally been for sale, Jen recognized that Asali and I had a special bond, and she believes that “every horse deserves to have someone love them.”

So, how did this entire endurance thing start? I am not really sure. I began doing trail trials with Asali in 2010, and one day when I was out pleasure riding with a girlfriend, she said something to the effect of, “Wouldn’t it be cool to ride in the Tevis Cup one day? We should totally do it! We could train together.” Now, Julie doesn’t have her own horse yet, but I agreed that when she got her Arab, I would train for the Tevis with her. At the time, I didn’t really have any great desire to do endurance riding, but I am game for anything, and I thought, well, I’ll do it because I can.

As I began reading about the Tevis Cup and endurance riding, it began to sound exciting, even appealing. My 8 year old son, Jakob, caught me reading about the Tevis, and asked me if I was going to ride in the competition. He asked me who I was going to take, saying, “You can’t take Beauty, because I want her to sleep.” Beauty is his horse, and he was very concerned about the fact that the Tevis Cup is a 24 hour ride. I looked at him and said, “I’ll ride Asali.”

The more I thought about it, the more I thought Asali probably could do it. She’s extremely sure-footed. She has tons of energy and is a very willing horse. She also has speed and enjoys competition, just as I do. Plus, I have the perfect training ground… miles and miles of remote wilderness surrounding the horse ranch where I live. And a lot of it is rugged terrain… not trails for the light hearted. So, why not? I should do it just because I can.