Endure for the Cure - Bittersweet Success!

With all the rain we've had in the midwest this spring and summer, it's slowed down our progress in building the endurance resumes of some of our horses.

Endure for the Cure came up on the calendar and luckily it wasn't going to be the usual high heat and humidity for this ride. And although ride management does a fantabulous job taking care of horses and riders (handing out cool towels in VC line - AWESOME!), it may not be the preferred ride to start out some of your newbies at. But this year, a little cool weather and a promised window between T-storms, and it seemed like the perfect time to bring some horses.

Attempting their first LD ride at this event were Desert Bred Arabians' young stallion, DB Ibn Jalam (pictured above from his performance at the Al Khamsa convention last year) along with the horse version of the energizer bunny, DB Caprih (pictured below at a H/J show). Caprih is just cute as a bug, and a dynamo in a small horse body (she's about 14.2). She's incredibly balanced and athletic, so it was exciting to see her taking on a new discipline outside of the show ring in endurance. Sarah Sanders, the head trainer at DB Arabians, was riding Jalam and one of the young assistant trainers, Megan, was riding Caprih.

Providing transportation, housing and all around inspiration was Paula Kaigh, one of our boarders and endurance guru with over 1000 miles racked up. She was bringing her 5 yr old gelding Ibn Desert Dhellal who was adding one more LD to his young career.

The 3 started the LD together and all was going smooth as silk. They were pacing well together, and stallion Ibn Jalam behaved like a gentleman on trail and off. The 3 were in the lead into the second loop, and eventually Sarah and Megan chose to slow up a bit so Caprih started paying better attention to taking care of herself, eating and drinking.

Paula finished in 1st, at least a half hr ahead of other riders, and Sarah and Megan were likely in 2nd and 3rd out on the trail. But SURPRISE - ride management advised because of some confusing trail markings she had missed going around a certain meadow. To get a completion she would need to go back out and get that meadow. Argh! Sarah and Megan ran into the same problem, but they were told while they were still on the course, so they didn't have to come all the way in to find out. By then, RM figured out the snafu and had sent someone out to advise other riders of the confusing spot and to better mark the turn.

So back out to that evil meadow went Paula...which meant a 45 minute detour for her, all to pick up that meadow that took a whole 7 minutes to go around. Double argh! Even more frustrating to know that even if she had done that meadow, she still would have finished well in first with that 30 minute lead that she had.

But the ride was still a success - Ibn Desert Dhellal added 25 miles to his mileage and gained much more in experience and maturity. Ibn Jalam and Caprih began their journey on learning what pacing, eating and drinking was all about. Definitely a great foundation to their endurance careers!