Endurance Riding

If I ever thought I was sore from riding before, I was wrong. Today I woke up and I was sore like I’ve never been before. I hurt from my trapezius to my deltoid to my infraspinatus to my triceps. My latissimus dorsi aches, as does my gluteus maximus. My adductor longus muscle, gracilis muscle, […]

Wow! What an amazing ride we had today. Mom had been wanting to go down into the canyon, so last night we mapped it out on the GPS. We took Doon Grade Road to Coutolenc and then connected to Jordan Hill Road. Jordan Hill Road, like Doon Grade, is a dirt road. Off-road vehicles can […]

Today, Mom (and Sophie) joined Asali and I for our endurance training. Before we started out, Mom taught me how to wrap Asali’s legs. I decided that it would probably be a good idea to start using those polo wraps Mom got for Asali, to allow for extra leg protection on our long rides. Mom […]

I woke up feeling sore this morning. I couldn’t figure out why. Although Asali and I are doing longer rides than we normally do, my legs are pretty fit for riding. And yesterday, I did not dismount and walk for very long on our ride. We did approximately 9 miles, averaging a speed around 4.5 […]

Before I decided to train today, I sat down at my sewing machine and finished a quilt I had been working on for a friend and fellow horseman. He had been admitted to the ICU where I work. It is always difficult to see someone you knew as a healthy, active person fighting to recover […]

My last ride with Asali was uneventful… we covered four miles, with me in the saddle for two miles and then on foot for the last two. After the ride, I found a great article on the AERC website about conditioning your horse for endurance riding. Some key points that I took from that article […]

Today, Asali and I became official members of the AERC (American Endurance Ride Conference). The same night I had been Googling “Tevis Cup,” I came across the AERC website. While I didn’t join right away, I bookmarked the site and decided to keep it as a reference. However, the more research I’ve been doing, the […]

The weather was definitely nicer today – warmer and sunny at times. But I knew I had to work Beauty today before I did any training with Asali.     Beauty is my son Jakob’s Appendix mare. We adopted her from Safe Haven Horse Rescue back in August. She is a beautiful 16 hands and […]

Today my goal had been to do another long ride with Asali. I decided we’d ride up Lovelock Road. I took Forest, a 6 year Appaloosa I started under saddle last year, because he needed the work and he’s a great pony horse. I had planned on a four hour ride. I decided to ride […]

Today, I decided we’d work on speed rather than distance since I did not have the time to ride more than a couple hours (we had our trainer, Sheri Braun, coming to work with Jakob and Beauty at 1 pm). We did the “Loop Trail” (named so because it goes in a loop… I know, […]