Liz Taylor

The Endurance Season has started!!

After what has felt like an extraordinarily long winter the Endurance Season has finally kicked off.
Last weekend we took SG Enigmatika to our first ride of the season, the Forest Of Dean March Hares Endurance ride. We opted to ride the 40km (25mile) route as although carrying a bit more weight than I’d like (she’s a very good do-er, currently eating Hi-Fi Lite and a small amount of Alfa-A) she is certainly fit enough for the distance.

The day dawned cold but dry and we set off for the ride. Unfortunately my foals had managed to break three of my Dad’s ribs in some winds a few weeks back – so he wasn’t fit to crew, so poor mum was roped in to lug heavy water buckets around.
Enigmatika arrived at the ride and settled and vetted like a true pro. Her aim this year is to achieve Advanced Status, and complete a couple of 80km rides (50miles) to enable her to ‘race’ next year so a successful completion was top of our agenda – not setting the land speed record! I believe you should increase distance for a horse, before increasing the speed too dramatically, so this years aim is to get distance under her belt. Speed is a difficult thing to decide upon as it depends on how the horse is feeling/the ground/the weather... there are so many variables, at the Forest I was aiming for Enigmatika to complete at between 12 – 13kph.

Enigmatika gave me a fantastic ride, I wanted her to set a sensible pace which she could keep up all day and still finish with lots of fuel left in the tank, so she set about at a gentle trot, allowing her to canter on the nice going. They have amended the Forest Ride since I last rode here and have taken out some long road work sections and replaced them with some lovely canters. She was in ‘cruise control’ all day, giving me a beautiful relaxed and responsive ride, she even learnt about ‘slosh bottles’ on this ride, and allowed me to pour them over her whilst sat in the saddle and then drop them to the ground next to her – a skill all endurance horses need to master!
She completed the ride easily and in good time, giving me lots of confidence that she has a good base fitness for the season ahead. She vetted exceptionally well and achieved a Grade 2 at the end – which is a good start to the year. She trotted up well for the vet which I feel is so important at the end of a ride, as if they produce a good athletic trot up they make themselves look much better. My little tip (and pet hate here!) is teach your horse to trot up at home, with a second person if need be to clap behind it / gently use a whip / make it go forward after you have shouted Trot. They do learn very quickly, and once they learn you will have a much better trot up at a ride rather than it resisting and making itself look tired/lame.

This weekend Enigmatika had a change of career momentarily when we entered a Dressage Competition organised by our local endurance group as a training exercise. Ennie once again gave me a lovely ride and showed herself very very well. We completed the Prelim A test, and the Intro 7 test. She came 6th in the Prelim which I was happy with...however after doing a lovely Intro test she managed to ruin it by spooking in a corner and then spooking at the same corner each time we got to it... Horses huh!!!!
She did manage to get 63.91%...which I don’t think is too bad for a first time!

Our next Endurance Ride is at Tresham on 3rd April where she will be doing another 40km ride. Between now and then we are off up to Ludlow to ride the new route for this ride. Mum and Dad have taken over the running of Ludlow Endurance ride and have decided to completely change the route to minimise the roadwork and avoid crossing the busy A49, so Enigmatika and I are off to ride the proposed route to give a riders view point of it. I am quite excited about this as it looks like a fantastic new route.

Thanks must go to Dengie for agreeing to support this ride – I hope we will get lots more riders to come and ride a part of Shropshire we haven’t ridden before... I’ll post details of the web address when the website is up and running.

Best of luck to everyone else just starting the season,

Liz & SG Enigmatika