Why Edurance?

Oz and I

When I first fell in love with the sport of Endurance, I was a little girl staring wide-eyed into The Encyclopedia of Horses. Something about the smiling riders clinging to the backs of Arabians, sweaty horses with their ears perked and eyes bright, and the magnitude of the classic Cougar Rock photograph never left me. I can still see the exact pictures used in the book, to this day, and they nag at me again and again, to make my dream my reality. Nearly 15 years after staring into my childhood bible, I am approaching the first  checkpoint on my endurance journey. Well, actually more like the third, fourth, or four hundredth checkpoint. Or at least it feels like it!

I've had "the" horse, for seven years now, and while being a massive pain in the you-know-what, he has proven to be my four legged life partner. It has been a long road for my two year old endurance prospect, who had a sneaky little stifle issue as well as a hot-to-trot attitude. I just now feel that we are finally nearing the end of the "what else could go wrong" bridge. My journey with this horse has been a personal one, we grew up together, we went to college together and now as we approach graduation we take our first steps in the big wide world, together. Oz is and has been the most unexpected mentor I could have never asked for. He has taught me painful lessons in humility, patience, and persistence. He has professed a calm in me that I doubt I would have found without him, and has continued to test me in ways I could never have expected.  Like when he decides to spook at the wash stall...every single time we walk by it.

Approaching the end of my college undergrad career, I am finally able to take a hard look at what a life of endurance riding means to me and have, with the help of many, decided to throw my heart into the sport I have always wanted to love. The first thing that pops into my mind when I think endurance, is horses. In particular, strong, fit, healthy, happy, and beloved, horses. The endurance "mindset" when it comes to the horse, is something which I continue to be excited by. My desire to be an endurance rider is paralleled by my desire to form a deep bond with my horse, and to know him in ways an hour every other day in an arena just can't provide. I also have grown quickly attached to the members of the endurance community, who have shown me nothing but compassion and support as I try (and fail, repeatedly) to get my green bean butt to a ride on a sound horse. I have an amazing mentor, who's support has been the difference between giving up and getting on. And I have finally paid my dues and have officially joined my local club, the DBDR, and the AERC. I keep having this feeling as though everything is coming around.

We have gotten over the initial saddle hump, the untimely injury hump, and the three months of pasture rest hump. I have a saddle that fits, an "endurance" saddle pad on order, and a girth extender on loan until my fat horse loses his mid life crisis. We have two more months of winter, and two months of dressage work with a very generous and incredibly understanding trainer. Following this, Mr. O to the Z, heads east for boot camp, endurance style while I stay at home and relearn how to do more than lift a pencil again. We reunite in May, and if all goes as planned the local trails wont know what hit them and we will have come full circle. I will be the rider, smiling, atop a big happy bay, decked out in crazy biothane tack, crusing along down the trail at our first ride. I plan on buying that ride photo, and placing it over the one in the Encyclopedia of the Horse, and taking my place among my dreams.