Introductions

So I've decided to start a blog about my horses, their training and endurance rides. I think this will help me keep track of my goals and training, plus share it with my friends who are interested. So I guess I'll introduce me, the horses, and my goals with them first.

I'm a 27 year old girl (lady?! I'm getting old!) from Alberta, Canada. I'm married to a wonderful guy who totally supports my horsey habbits and even enjoys going for trail rides and working with the horses too. We own our own company and I'm lucky enough to work from home doing our books so I have lots of time (and daylight hours in the winter!) to work with our horses. We don't have real kids but we do have a "furbaby", our 3 year old Bichon Frise/Shih Tzu mix, Lucy. You'll probably see her lurking in the backgrounds of photos and videos here. She's our constant shadow. She does have 1 blue eye, so don't be alarmed by how crazy she appears. It does suit her personality too!

Onto the ponies...Play It By Heart and Chall Struck WA (aka Player and Little John (aka LJ)). We'll start off with Player.
Pedigree: http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/play+it+by+heart

Player is my coming 12 year old Arabian gelding. I've had him for almost 2 years now, and he's completed several 25 mile distance (endurance and competitive trail) rides plus numorous poker rallies, camping/trail riding trips to the mountains, etc...We attempted a 50 mile endurance ride last summer however we were pulled after 18 miles due to him short striding in his trott out. The conditions were terrible (pouring rain, mud up to his knees) so I wasn't too disapointed. He can be a bit of a challenge, he's very well broke but loves to go fast and and loves to have his way. He tends to want to stick with a pack and always wants to catch the horses in front of us. He is a huuuuge suck hole though and always wants to be right in your pocket. My goals for him this year are to get us pacing ourselves better during the rides, keep working on teaching him he's okay by himself on the trail, and to have him ready for another 50 by June or July. He's laid up right now as he skinned up his fetlock but hopefully in a couple weeks he'll be ready to start conditioning again.
Here we are at a gorgeous competitive trail ride down in southern Alberta, from 2009.

My new horse is Little John (LJ).

Pedigree: http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/chall+struck+wa

I just got him in September and he's a bit of project pony. He is coming 6 years old and still pretty green. I'm doing lots of foundation work with him now and my goals for him this year are to get a good foundation on him, and have him conditioned for some 25 milers by June (the first ride here is in May but hubby and I will be down in Arizona for a wedding) and if all goes well and he's ready I'd like to do a 50 with him by the end of the summer. He's a lot more timid than Player, but has really buddied up to us and is the type of horse that just wants to please and do what you ask. It will be interesting to take him on his first ride and see how he does. I'm hoping to get a mountain trip in on him before we do our first endurance ride.

So there's our introductions :) I will try to update this at least once/week. I made this blog not searchable so if you are seeing it I probably passed it on to you and hope you enjoy seeing the horses. This isn't a personal blog and won't be, but if you like horses or endurance riding and want to keep up with my horses then you'll like it.