Okay, I think that covers it....This entry will hopefully be the longest one I ever post because I'm trying to cover my history of getting into the sport. Sorry if you've read/seen it all before, I totally give you full permission to skip this one and move ahead! I PROMISE it will get more interesting as the season goes on.

I currently reside in Norfolk, VA and race mainly in the Northeast and Southeast regions of the US (as termed by the American Endurance Ride Conference http://www.aerc.org/). I currently am training/condition/racing one horse, Legalas (owned by Lisa Green) and live with my crazy energetic dog, Jack. But more on all that later...This year marks my fourth season in the sport of endurance. I've gone so many places and got to do so many amazing things, I thought it would be fun to document my experiences and share them with my friends, family, and whomever.
I have been an athlete and horse lover all of my life. I was the kid with 200 "My Little Ponies" and Breyer horses scattered about the room, and who would yell "Mommy HORSEYS!" whenever we passed by a pasture along the road. Once, when I was 2, I even wandered across several acres of open field (with retention ponds) to pet a horse through the fence of a neighboring farm (my Mom was in the kitchen cooking, completely unaware. Needless to say
she was not amused). I started riding horses when I was 6 years old by taking hunter/jumper lessons in my hometown of Bloomington, IN with the then-coach of the Indiana University Equestrian Team. As I got older, I moved barns (http://www.rockyriverfarm.com/) and rode dressage and some light jumping, always on school horses because my family could not afford to buy my own horse. I think this was a great thing for me; it not only taught me how to ride in several different disciplines with different technique, but it taught me to be very appreciative of the equine opportunities that came my way. To help pay for lessons, I worked as a barn hand cleaning the rider's lounge, cleaning stalls, sweeping aisles, grooming horses, etc. To be honest, it never felt like work for me because I loved being there so much. I did a few school shows and did very well, I even ribboned in my very first English pleasure class!
As I got older and involved in more hobbies (swimming, soccer, music, etc), I had to make some tough choices and riding fell by the wayside a bit. I still loved it, I just didn't have much time to balance. I still rode occasionally and even took horse trips and vacations, and knew I'd come back to it someday. The summer of my senior year of college I worked at an equestrian camp via Camp Tecumseh, YMCA (http://www.camptecumseh.org/) and discovered endurance via my friend, Karis. I had only heard a little about it, and definitely was interested. I thought it would be the perfect combo of my athletic background and competitive race personality with my love of horses.
Counselors at Camp pictured below:

As I got older and involved in more hobbies (swimming, soccer, music, etc), I had to make some tough choices and riding fell by the wayside a bit. I still loved it, I just didn't have much time to balance. I still rode occasionally and even took horse trips and vacations, and knew I'd come back to it someday. The summer of my senior year of college I worked at an equestrian camp via Camp Tecumseh, YMCA (http://www.camptecumseh.org/) and discovered endurance via my friend, Karis. I had only heard a little about it, and definitely was interested. I thought it would be the perfect combo of my athletic background and competitive race personality with my love of horses.
Counselors at Camp pictured below:

So, one day in grad school while I was sitting in the most BORING computer class EVER (seriously, the instructor gave us assignments on how to google for information), I decided to look up endurance. The first website that popped up was a training ranch in Moab, UT called Global Endurance Training Center (http://www.globalendurancetrainingcenter.com/). I thought "That would be a cool summer experience," and on a whim, sent them an email to see if I could work there that summer. I quickly got a response back from Dian Woodward, who said they could definitely use the help! I went out to ride that December (so they could make sure I knew what I was doing somewhat) and not only had a great winter vacation, but also landed a summer job.
That summer in Moab was one of the hardest, but also best of my life. I learned more about horses and endurance than I ever thought possible, and I also gained a wealth of confidence. There were weeks where I literally was the only person on the ranch maintaining and riding and training....it was great! I did things on horseback that I never thought were possible! Christoph Schork and Dian have a great facility, a wealth of knowledge, and their horses are well-conditioned and trained. I even got to do my first 50 mile ride at the Happy Jack endurance ride in Wyoming (thanks to Mel Hare for driving us!). I was also in the best shape of my life; for those who haven't worked on a ranch/farm before, trust me the physical labor is incredible. I also learned a lot about my own fitness and physical capability, and how to go all day in a labor-based job. Trick: in the desert, keep your sodium levels up, and move at a slower pace to conserve energy. Trust me, the produ

After returning from Moab to grad school at IU, I had one semester left of classes. I continued to take lessons once a week to stay in "riding shape" and looked ahead to how I could get back to endurance. For those who don't know, riding in general is a pretty demanding sport depending on what discipline you do. For endurance, imagine doing Pilates and instead of moving sections of your body, having the ground underneath you move continuously and you have to keep your body still, supple, and upright. Now imagine doing that for 8-12 hours. Yeah, ouch.
I managed to land an internship in Norfolk, VA with an entertainment company (http://www.sevenvenues.com/). Almost immediately, I began looking for a way to keep riding. I sent out an email via AERC and Endurance Net for riders in the area who had extra horses that needed a solid rider. This is how I ran into Heather and Jeremy Reynolds. Heather and Jeremy are very well-known endurance riders; I hadn't met them before but definitely recognized their name from my summer in Utah and keeping up with the latest race results. They've won Tevis a few times and gotten the coveted Best Condition award there, as well as competed internationally very successfully. They recently just returned from the President's Cup race in Dubai, where Jeremy was the first overseas rider to finish on Sir Smith! A very prestigious honor! They had recently moved to Virginia from California to work for CreRun Farms in Doswell, near Richmond (www.crerunfarm.com). They were both training the track horses there (did you know there is also Arabian Track Racing that is separate from Thoroughbred?), and also taking horses off the track and train

I had a great season in 2008 with the Reynolds. I drove up to CreRun every weekend (it's about a 2 hour drive) to ride and train with them. They even let me bring my dog, Jack, and crash at their house! We had lots of fun trying to find things to do around Richmond (since we were all new to the area) and happily our dogs got along really well too! This is a big deal for Jack, he can be kind of cranky with other dogs. I got to do 3 races and crew for several others, and explore the training options around central and Southeastern VA, as well as races all over the Eastern US. We definitely racked up the gas mileage that summer! I became a much better rider; nothing gets you in shape like jumping on a myriad of race horses, and I learned even more about the sport of endurance. Jeremy is also an awesome farrier, working mainly in barefoot but he also does shoes. I learned the pros/cons to barefoot vs shoes on horses and got to use new and exciting products he was helping develop, like Renegade Boots (http://www.renegadehoofboots.com/). I also met a lot of new people in our sport, which was DEFINITELY useful for the future. And through the Reynolds, I learned more about FEI racing and what competing on the national level entails.
In October/November of 2008, the Reynolds decided to move back to CA. I was incredibly sad, I think I cried the entire way home from our last day riding together. These were my first re


After Heather and Jeremy left, I took a few months hiatus since the compteition season was winding down. But it didn't take long before I got the itch back, and sent another email out. This time I got a response from Mary Howell in New Kent, VA. I had met Mary via Heather and Jeremy; she's kind of like the go-to person in our area for endurance because she knows everyone and all places to ride.
I have to write a paragraph to talk about how amazing Mary is. Mary has a heart of gold and never ending energy. She has dragged my ass back and forth across this side of the country countless numbers of times, and I owe her everything for getting me to where I am today. THANKS MARY!

Mary has two horses, Shiloh and Frank. Shiloh was 17 that year and was nearing his 5,000 miles award for endurance. Frank was a youngster who she was just getting started. I got started with Mary, riding both horses but mainly focusing on Shiloh. S

Lisa and her husband, Andy, have three sons and live out in Star Tannery in the mountains of Northern VA. Lisa campaigns her mare, Amana, in FEI and is trying to qualify for the 2010 World Championships in Kentucky. The year previous, Andy had bought a raffle ticket for the famous Old Dominion Raffle Horse, donated annually by Asgard Arabians in West Virginia (http://www.olddominionrides.org/, http://www.asgardarabians.com/). He did this without telling Lisa, and in an ironic turn of course they won! The horse's name was Legalas, Legs for short. For those not familiar with Legs or Asgard or the Old Dominion raffle horse, he had a bit of a reputation proceeding him. Asgard does some great breeding, they are notorious for turning out amazing endurance horses. But they don't do much in the way of handling them at a young age, so they basically stay untouched and live wild on the side of a mountain in the herd until they are sold. In Legs' case, he had been out with the herd for about 3 years before becoming the raffle horse. He is small, but definitely built for the sport. Bone for days, feet like cement, short back, compact, and bred from the "hottest of the hot" according to Tom Sayvetz (one of the Asgard owners). He also was nervous as anything I had ever encountered before; scared of anything unnatural, and combined with his amazing athleticism this was a rough combo. A lot of riders in our area know his reputation for this from when Andy and Lisa took him home from the Fort Valley ride; he had to be drugged and dragged in order to get on the trailer and apparently put on quite a display. Lisa and Andy are both great riders, as are their kids. But Legs was a lot to handle. He was, and still can be, pretty dangerous, and he definitely takes a strong rider. He has dumped me and gotten me pretty hurt several times. Lisa needed someone to devote themselves to his career full-time. I met Lisa and stayed in her trailer at the Sand Hills ride the previous year; she is close friends with Mary and liked how I handled and rode Shiloh that weekend. So when she needed a rider for Legs, Mary talked her into recruiting me. I was nervous, but super-excited to accept the challenge. Here was essentially my own horse to train and compete, what could be more awesome? Little did I know how much work he would be....

Legs improved exponentially through his training at Judie's. When I first went up to ride him, he was still incredibly nervous, doing his patented "Sit and Spin" move every time something new came up on trail. When I say sit and spin, it was FAST! This horse can flip around the other direction in the blink of an eye. It's an amazing thing to watch for sure. But as the weeks progressed, he got better and better and was easier to ride out on trail. Great job Judie and Jennifer!
I started driving up to the farm on weekends to work with Legs and help Judie out with whatever she needed. Our weekends typically went like this: Jennifer and I would go out on Saturday, som


After Judie's, we moved Legs to Riverview Farms in Williamsburg, VA. This private boarder is about a mile down the road from great training at York River State Park, very important for me since at the time I didn't have a truck or trailer to transport him. It was also close to Mary, which was also important since she was helping to haul me everywhere! Unfortunately, we had to move him a few months in because of some issues with the boarder. To make it short, she's an incredibly nice person and has decent facilities, but is very inexperienced and unconfident with horses. There were too many on the property, and we weren't confident that she could handle any emergencies that arose. The straw that broke it was when she wanted to bring in an additonal horse for his already too-small pasture, and when I said no made up a bogus excuse about him being food dominant and dangerous. For those that don't know Legs, he is definitely at the bottom of the totem pole in herds and is so not-dominant it's crazy. He has yet to meet a horse he doesn't get along with. So we got him out of there ASAP, to Laurellye Farms in Gloucester, VA (closer to Norfolk).
We did 3 more rides in the 2009 season, the 50 at Virginia Highlands (20th place), the LD at Fort Valley (2nd place), and the 50 at Mustang Memorial in NJ (7th place). Legs got better and better at each ride, and I am always super-impressed with his spirit, drive, and desire to please.

I now board Legs with Joy and Michael Mahler in Gloucester. Joy had an amazing career in

This is a GREAT blog, Sarah! Wish it had been around when I began last year. In-depth and specific. Thanks for putting it together.
ReplyDelete~ Jill Walker