Saturday, June 1, 2013

Blogging again after a 4 year break.

Well, a lot has changed in the last 4 years.  From my quest to find a suitable horse to where I am now, 6 days away from riding in the Tom Quilty Gold Cup, Australia's national endurance championship.  A 160km endurance ride in Kilkivan Queensland. 

Moselle and I did one training ride together after she was broken in, but things didn't work out in the long run. We were not a good match.  Bit of a personality clash and I ended up with a couple of cracked ribs.  After she bucked me off for the 4th time, I decided she was the wrong horse for me.  In my very first entry in this blog, there is a photo of me riding a bay horse.  I ended up buying him, my mount for my very first training ride.  The awesome Bashan Memphis, a pure-bred Arabian, also known as Pretty Boy or Ken Doll.  The photo below was taken when the got off the truck coming home from an endurance ride.  He still has a clay poultice on his legs.





Memphis is an awesome horse in both athletic ability and temperament.  He is powerful, strong and an absolute gentleman of a horse.  Memphis and I have completed over 1200km of endurance rides over the past 4 years, including a couple of first places, coming 2nd in a 320km marathon, and coming 5th in the State Championships.

I've come to the sad realisation that Memphis is 12, and I will need to think about my next mount in the next 4 or 5 years, not too far off, it doesn't seem all that long ago that I bought Moselle.  

Now the countdown to the Tom Quilty begins.  Started sorting out my gear for a 6 day camp with Memphis.  Looking forward to it - can't wait.