Grizzly Mountain Endurance Ride

Brian and I decided that we were going to fulfill my dream of riding endurance. In the past I never had a horse that could do it. So I decided to used one of our broodmares "Kelsey" and Brian was going to use a grulla gelding named "Diego". These two ended up becoming a great pair. So after months of training, the Grizzly Mountain Ride in Redmond, OR was our first ride.

The motto in endurance is to finish is to win, but Kelsey and Diego came in 26th and 27th out of 61 riders on their first ride with scores of all A's on the vet checks. We were so proud of our horses. Kelsey helped me fulfill a dream come true when we passed the finish line and vetted in with no problems. Both the horses acted like we hardly even use them.

The ride itself was great fun. The people were extremely friendly and helpful. We had a great crew also. Allen and Lisa, we cannot thank you enough. They have been doing endurance for years and helped make sure everything went smoothly. They made sure that our first ride was a pleasant one even though the weather was trying to dampen our sprites. It didn't work.

The weather decided to do everything but sunshine. We tacked in the snow and about 20 mph winds only to finish with light rain and 60 mph wind. I think you can see from the pictures it was a bit cold and windy. But the horses acted as if it were 75 degrees and sunny.

Here we are waiting in line after we got our numbers to get our pre-ride vet score.

Grooming Kelsey the day before for the Pre-Vet.	Brian & Diego checking out the terrain.
Tacking up and checking gear twice.	Brian rode in all his western gear.
Kelsey pawing the ground before we started the race. Kelsey was ready to go before I woke up that morning.	Both of us asking each other if we are ready to do this. As you can see Kelsey was.
The start of the race. We left behind everyone else so we could have a slow easy start. Energy runs hot on the beginning of an endurance race.	Heading down the trail. Slow at first due to the weather but after about 20 minutes of warm up the rest was at a faster pace.
This is us coming in after completing the first loop and getting ready for our P/R check and vet in.	Walking to the finish line so that our horses P/R would be down for the final vet check.
After 25 miles the horses still looked fresh with perky ears. At this point the wind was so bad we were all leaning into the wind.	Kelsey trotting off at her exit exam. She scored all A's.