Prologue

About 3 years ago, my friends and I went for our annual horse riding holiday to a place called Mary Valley Adventure Trails, run by Graham and Gail Ellison. We used to go to another place, but they put their prices up so we got on to Google and started to look elsewhere, and found Graham. We arrived at the stables a little anxious, as Graham had told us all of his horses were Arabian endurance horses. Most of us have had bad experiences with the breed, and to find we would be riding ultra fit horses in full competitive training was a bit daunting. Looking a little closer at the horses, we noticed that the horses were very well looked after, all had near perfectly shod feet, and their coats gleamed in the sunlight, and very well mannered. Sadly, this is unusual for a commercial trail riding operation. This is how my deep respect for the endurance horse was born. The mare I rode carried me for 2 days, covering around 50km a day. We were all very impressed at how fit the horses were. Little did we know, that endurance riders call a 40km ride a training ride, and we were riding at less than half novice pace.

That evening, we went and watched the strapping area at the Imbil Sparkler, a major endurance ride run at night. We were all totally fascinated by what we saw. We became regular customers of Grahams, with him sharing his knowledge of endurance riding, horsemanship, and farriery with us, my interest in the sport of endurance riding grew.

I went to the Tom Quilty Gold Cup as a strapper for a commercial team in 2008, it was 16 hours of hard work, but I had a ball. In January 2009, I was given the opportunity to do a 40km ride on one of Graham's horses. It was stinking hot, wet and muddy, but we got through. I am very greatful for the opportunity, however, I started thinking about how satisfying it would be to find and train my own endurance horse and get it going.

Here started my quest, to find a suitable mount, and train it to become an endurance horse. Its a long road ahead, hopefully it won't be too bumpy.