Liz-Stout Blog - Full Story
Wednesday, May 8, 2019
Shortly after I tossed aside my hopes of attending No Frills earlier in April, Lauren reached out to me about being her sponsor for the Biltmore 50 on May 3. (In AERC, a sponsor is an adult ride who agrees to ride with a junior rider for the duration of the ride.) I’ve crewed this ride for an FEI rider once and again for Sara on her first 100. With added time to put weight on Q during April and knowing the grass was coming in strongly already, I accepted her proposal, excited to finally have a chance to ride at Biltmore!
It’s always been a dream of mine to ride at Biltmore, but one that didn’t work out in the timeline I’d hoped after Q tore her LH suspensory at the end of August in 2016. As I’ve written about at length since the injury, I’ve brought Q back slowly. In addition to rehabbing her suspensory, we’ve rehabbed our fractured relationship and our trust/confidence in one another. Slowly and steadily, with a lot of patience and a lot of time and miles, we made it back to where we were and then beyond. Since then, I’ve been eager to put everything to the true test of an endurance ride...
So the short of it? Q exceeded any and all expectations I had for her. She carried us to a completion after 50 miles of the most beautiful trails I’ve ever competed on. She led for nearly half of the ride, 12 of 15 miles of the final loop, like a total BOSS. Does this mean that we don’t have more to work on? Absolutely not. We’ve still got lots to improve on, but this new baseline is lightyears ahead of the old one and I couldn’t possibly be more thrilled.
The long of it? Gather your drink of choice and settle in for the first endurance ride story on this blog since June 2016, and I’ll tell you...
Read more here:
http://liz-stout.blogspot.com/
Friday, May 10, 2019
Thursday, May 02, 2019
A Hunter Jumper Gone Rogue - Sonya Bengali
April 16 2019
There is a ton of crossover between disciplines these days, but often it still feels like each operates in its own "world," with unique sets of rules and customs. Below, RW crew member and hunter/jumper rider, Sonya, hops disciplines and shares her experience doing her first Endurance ride, the 2019 Nevada Derby!
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A Little Background Info
I started my riding career in Pony Club, and throughout the years have dabbled in a variety of English riding disciplines. In my younger, crazier days, I hopped back and forth between eventing and equitation/medals, with the occasional dressage show or hunter derby thrown in the mix. Point chasing to qualify for Maclay Finals while simultaneously working towards my first CCI** (Long) was already seen as an obscure mix of disciplines, especially on the same horse. But, I genuinely loved both disciplines so I made it work.
Now that I'm officially an amateur, I've lost the guts I used to have for the upper levels of cross country, so these days I ride mostly in the medal/equitation ring. Still, I've always loved long solo trail rides and been intrigued by Endurance riding. I just never thought I'd act on it!
Then one day I found myself talking to RW customer and Endurance rider, Stevie Delahunt of Action Horse LLC., on Instagram direct message. She sent me a photo from a training ride to feature on the Riding Warehouse Instagram page, and casually mentioned that I should come ride with her sometime. Since I was a complete stranger, really just a mysterious entity managing the RW social channels, she probably didn't expect me to take her up on it. But after 10 seconds of contemplation, I thought, "why not?!"...
Read more here:
https://blog.ridingwarehouse.com/threads/a-hunter-jumper-gone-rogue.51/?fbclid=IwAR06M9UYt531v_hznnM2r75lHI6yQfPaQegdJVT2Y2Yq8dT9kgxslU8maaE