Sunday, July 6, 2014

My 24,000 mile Ride at Eagle

There is truly nothing like a good ride with great friends on fine horses!! It just doesn't get much better than that to this endurance junkie. Plus on this ride upon my wonderful Blue, I surpassed the AERC milestone of 24,000 AERC miles!

Steve Bradley got a great capture of the three of us at Eagle Extreme. All photos in this segment by Steve Bradley Photography.

Eagle Extreme was late going on the ride schedule and was held June 14 this year. Ride management did a wonderful job of putting together two nice loops through the Eagle hills for the 50 mile ride which is what we chose. Blue needed a 50 to get him ready before my friend Colleen comes to visit. Ted Nicholes, who has been working with Brass to get him ready for an advanced horsemanship event in Jackson Hole, WY., wanted to ride a 50 miler. Plus my friend of many years, Linda Ballard wanted to go on her mare HMR Sweet Music. So the three of us were saddled and ready to ride that gorgeous morning. 


Blue who is more freckles than a blue grey these days, had an absolute great day and really enjoyed himself. He got to be in front more than usual and he really likes that. 1365 AERC miles for Blue now!


Ted used all his horsemanship skills and did a lovely job on Brass. Ride management kept asking Ted if he was ready to get rid of his cowboy boots and jeans yet but Ted did fine. Check out his newly started blog http://foundationsandbeyondhorsemanship.blogspot.com/ Ted is a fine trainer and a great teacher and for once I got to help him learn something new, endurance riding. Now the whole family wants to ride!


We had a good ride! This was the second 50 mile ride for Brass and he ate grass for the entire 50 miles I think. All the horses had a super attitude. As we got close to the finish Ted asked if we were trotting in or walking to cool them down. I said for once let's trot in, I want to see how these two, Blue and Brass, do on pulses. So we trotted in and went straight for a pulse. Blue was 49 and Brass was 56! Only 9 horses finished and the three of us were 5th, 6th and 7th. We didn't set any speed records but we paced our horses well and they looked great at the finish which is what matters to me. Good ride and fun times!