Curly Standard Place - owned and operated by Shelly White

Curly Endurance

*Tessa's Endurance Debut

Here at the Curly Standard Place we like to do all kinds of things with our horses and this year we are trying our hands and hoofs at the sport of endurance.

A couple of years ago we did go on a training endurance ride and liked it quite a bit, but we also recognized that it takes a certain kind of horse to compete in this somewhat extreme sport. The horse needs to be athletic, handy, forward moving, energetic and also be a willing participant. Of course is also goes without saying that the horse (and human!) needs to be well conditioned!

So then, on this page will be a bit of information about this sport and a few pictures from our first ride of 2008, held in Rock Creek, BC on May 17/18.

The first horse pictured here (and most of the pictures on this page at this time) are of one of our very best Curly horses *Spar's Barefoot Contessa, she is actually our rising star in the dressage arena, but she has a ton of go and a measurable amount of Arabian in her through both her sire (*Spartacus) and her dam (*Chip's Barefoot Babe), so this also makes her quite suitable for endurance. We will do a few endurance rides with her this year, but her main focus is in dressage and she will do that for the most part.

Mirage - the competitor!

So we have our one purebred Arabian mare who is absolutely bred to do endurance. This is RJ Light Serenade aka Mirage. Mirage is not a Curly, but she was bred to *Sandman and in 2007 she produced a lovely Curly filly that we hope will be one of our next generation endurance horses - click here to see her filly *Sandman's Serenade.

heading out

Here we are heading out on on the first loop. This ride was 30 miles, which is ridden in two loops.

*Tessa's vet check

After completing the first loop, horses must regain a pulse rate of 60 bpm or lower and then go through a vet check. There was a 50 minute hold while the horses ate and rested.

*Tessa's trot out

Horses must also trot out sound at their vet checks. They must be deemed fit to continue or they are pulled from the ride.

end of first loop

This is at the end of the first loop - it was a challenging ride, but we had a BLAST and I think the horses did too - they were fit and ready for this competition and were so willing to go.

We enjoyed this ride so much - we fully intend to go to a few more rides over this season - so check back if you would like to see how it is all going for us.

In the meantime - here are a few links of interest. We actually now have four Curly/Arabians who will be potential Curly endurance horses.

The first one is three year old *Shesa Magic Charm aka *Charmin'. *Charm is just being trained to ride now and I anticipate taking her on at least one training ride later this year. A three year old horse is not permitted to do the actual endurance rides, but they also have "fun" rides of around 12 miles and youngsters can do these ones.

Next one is the yearling filly from Mirage - the horse pictured above - *Sandman's Serenade. She is very much like her dam - will be small and fast, bred to race. We are waiting anxiously for *Serenade to grow up!

Born this year are:
*Sand Runner he does live up to his name! He likes to RUN.
and:
*Captain Cruiser. *Cruise's sire is a Bask and Alladin grandson - this is a tall and very athletic Curly colt.

To learn more about endurance, you can visit the BCERA website here:
Endurance BC.
and you can also visit the ERA - they have excellent information for newbies. Endurance Alberta.

This is us heading out on the Merrit "Ride Over the Rainbow" - wow was this gorgeous scenery!

Unfortunately, Mirage and I only did the first loop, she pulled up sore and I had to pull her out at the first vet check. However, Tessa and Anastasia went on and completed the ride on their own and they came in SECOND - wow!!!