The Race Goes Not To the Swiftest...

And that is why endurance events and the work and preparation leading up to them are the only form of equine competition in which the horse is the winner.

Yesterday we had our first in house endurance event since the virus hit. It was a fifteen mile "scrimmage game". The beauty of endurance events is that the event does not end when the finish line is crossed. One's final time is recorded after the finish line is crossed and after the horse's heart rate has dropped below a certain number of beats per minute. 

Being pushed to be the swiftest--being pushed to cross the finish line and then collapse does not produce a winner. The race goes to the horse who is swift and conditioned to a level that allows the horse to be at maximum good health. That good health does not come in a drug or a supplement. It does not come in an expensive piece of equipment or an expensive accessory. It does not come from hiring an expensive trainer.

That good health is not purchased. It is earned.

I could not have been more pleased with our riders, especially two of the youngest who rode long and hard and pushed themselves beyond anything that they had done in the saddle before.

A blm mare, Choctaws, Bankers, two half Chincoteagues, a half Banker, a Caspian, a high percentage Grand Canyon, an SMR, and even a Tennessee Walking Horse were among the thirteen horses that set out for the event.

Rosa is Samantha's blm mare. Since hunting season went out Samantha has been trotting her for five mile rides morning after morning during the week and has ridden her on longer rides during the weekends. Over the past two weeks I noticed a change in the horse. Her normally lean body was even leaner and harder. She has taken on the look of a horse from a 19th century Russell painting. There is no waste in her look. Every thing that you see in her seems predisposed to motion.  She has picked up a longer, cleaner trot. It is a much faster trot than what she was doing four months ago. In short, Samantha has turned a very solid horse into a rock hard horse. In doing so she has developed an even closer relationship with the mouse colored, dun mare. 

And the work mattered. Even though her group made a slight miscalculation and rode an extra mile, Rosa crossed the finish line and her heart rate dropped quickly enough to come out on top of every other horse. 

A horse is what one makes of it. 

A person can be made by that same horse.