Endurance Riding

I was in charge of getting the boys ready for school this morning and then dropping them off. I also had to pick them up from school, Declan at noon and then Jakob at 2:15. It’s not that I never do these things, because I do drop them off at school on days when I […]

Sunday was a full day with the horses. I rode Forest in the round pen, then later ponied him while I rode Asali. Our trainer, Sheri, came up to work with Beauty. I rode her in the arena for about 40 minutes under Sheri’s guidance, and then I took her out on the trail by […]

I worked my Appaloosa, Forest, in the round pen. Although I started him under saddle a little over a year ago, I don’t ride him more than twice a week (usually, I pony him), so he needs a lot more training learning to give to the bit. We did a lot of circles in the […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

I woke up on January 6th 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 […]