Endurance Riding

If you had told me a year ago that I would be riding a green broke stallion on his first 50 (which turned out to be a 55) while sponsoring not one, but two juniors (one who was riding a mare), I would have thought you were crazy… but that’s exactly what happened on Sunday […]

Robert Burns, in 1785, said, “The best laid plans of mice and men, often go awry.” By the time I had made it to the Pacific Crest Endurance Ride near Ashland, Oregon on the evening of June 16th, I think I was on Plan Q. Everything had changed – from who was watching the baby […]

Redwoods. Coastal breezes. Cooler temperatures. Mist, fog, and the magic of shaded forests… Cuneo Creek was always a ride I wanted to enter, but after more than a decade of competing in the sport of endurance, it still hadn’t made it on my list (mostly because I never wanted to brave driving the long, curvy, […]

One of my students, 15-year-old Jenna Asnault, finished her first 50-mile endurance ride back in November at the Gold Rush Shuffle. Last month, she wrote a beautiful testament of her ride and her experience trying out different equestrian disciplines. Her story is both inspiring and wonder-filled. Reading it brought tears to my eyes…   Passing […]

This endurance season didn’t quite start off the way I had planned… I hit a first. The first time I went to a ride and didn’t start. I had been working out and training hard. My head was finally back in the game. I had dreams of riding through the night with my son, and […]

We are less than a month away from Tevis and my mind is filled with all kinds of thoughts. At night, I dream of crossing the finish line on my gallant mare, Asali, a horse I now know can do 100 miles. I put together invitations for my crew to attend a pre-Tevis dinner and […]

It wasn’t that I wasn’t excited to come out and ride. I was excited to get back out on the trail with my proven endurance mare, and to be riding a real endurance ride again. But it felt a little odd to be leaving without Jakob. Sure, when I started in this sport, it was […]

The Tevis Cup served as this turning point for me. I disappeared for awhile following the ride. I found myself lost in a lot of reflection. I did a lot of soul searching. What I thought would be the end of a two year journey became the rest of my life. That historic trail through […]

Asali and I hitched a ride with my endurance buddies, the Straub sisters, to the Trinity River Challenge near Ruth Lake in Trinity County. We arrived on Thursday afternoon after a 6 hour haul. On Friday morning, we got the horses ready for our pre-ride. We set out on the trail that was to be […]

There is always that one horse in ride camp that loves to put on a show. Well, this time, it was Asali. On Saturday morning, as I was leading her out to the start of our first 50-miler of the weekend, Asali began rearing, head tossing, and bucking circles around me. Suddenly, she had turned […]