What came in the mail Saturday

My highest mileage AERC horse medallion - 9,000 miles - for TBR Granite Chief+/

I love it when the horses reach new milestones.  Interesting that it worked out this year that on the same day Chief reached 9,000 miles I reached 24,000.  It is kind of weird to think that I have ridden 15,000 miles *without Chief*.  Every single mile on the endurance trail that Chief has done has been with me.  I don’t think I could ever allow anybody to ride him on a ride.  I’m *his* rider and I don’t think he’d like that very much.  I’ve never had a horse before Chief that was so bonded to me as he is.

The reason that’s good for Chief that I had so much experience prior to starting him, I guess – is that he didn’t have to be subjected to quite so many stupid mistakes on my part.

It’s hard to participate in the sport of endurance riding for very long and not make mistakes.  I think the biggest learning curve was in the first 1,000 miles for me.  Then the next biggest curve was in learning how to achieve similar success with a second, then a third endurance horse.  You learn so much with one horse.  They aren’t all the same though, so you have to be able to allow yourself to look at each horse as an individual.  Each one of my horses has taught me so many things.

Speaking of mistakes.  I think know that one of the biggest errors I’ve made with a horse was the year I came in first overall in the West region on Rocky.  I think I top tenned something like 19 rides on him, lots of those I was pretty far up in the front.  Of all of the things I’ve ever done with a horse over the years, that is the one thing that I would definitely do differently if I had it to do over again.  I learned that just because a horse can do extremely well and doesn’t appear to be phased or showing signs of wear and tear you are fooling yourself if you believe that the horse isn’t going to suffer the consequences at some point down the road.  I really think that had I ridden Rocky more conservatively throughout his entire career that he may have made it a bit longer and would have more than 7600 miles.

Sort of like how Chief now has 9,075 miles and has been ridden more conservatively.  He’s had so few problems along the way.  Part of it is luck but part of it is that I’ve worked really hard to keep him going at a steady pace that isn’t so fast that it beats him up or causes him to become injured.  I know, stuff happens – really – we just finished a 4 1/2 month long ordeal getting his eyelid and eye healed up from a pasture accident.

If you factor out “luck” then you are still left with a big chunk of “opportunity for error” as well as “opportunity for success”.  The two often parallel each other.  It’s really rewarding to be able to develop a strategy that lets you choose which way you want to go with each horse.

That’s not to say that I wouldn’t have still raced Rocky on occasion.  I just wouldn’t have done it nearly as much.  I tend to agree with the Duck (read his editorial on “riding and racing“).  Note the part where he states: “I personally believe that horses should race no more than once or twice a year”. And along those lines, if I were looking at an endurance horse to consider for my own personal mount I would not be interested in looking at one that has been raced.  Most riders have enough common sense to know that they should back off once in awhile and not race every time out.  There are but a few who don’t “get it”.

I’m definitely more interested in keeping my horses going than in having a shorter but more spectacular career.  Next month when Chief (hopefully) does a ride it will be the start of his 9th ride season.  I hope that he’ll also make it to ten years or more, like Weaver and Rocky.  Earning him a place on the Decade Team list.