Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Want to feel good, cover a lot of ground, and enjoy a real sense of accomplishment? And spend a lot of time with your horse? Then read this book. Endurance riding (strictly speaking, going 50-100 miles a day across the countryside for 1-5 days on or with your horse) should not be attempted unless you and your horse have some basic training, including physical conditioning, but with the right approach almost anyone can do it. Donna shows you how, from basics to true competition (not only how to reach the finish line in one piece but how to be one of the first arrivals on a horse that is ready and able to keep going). There are a number of books offering advice on endurance riding, and most provide valuable information, but I find this one the best starting point. Besides covering the fundamentals found in almost every endurance book, Donna offers exercises for you and your horse that help you both to finish without being cramped, exhausted or otherwise unfit to continue (I can testify to this!). She also injects many nuggets of wisdom from her extensive personal experience. Finally, the format includes many helpful diagrams, illustrations, photos, boxes, summaries, lists and references that get the necessary concepts across much better than plain words in a paragraph, which makes for easier reading and quicker comprehension. My only complaint is that the book is too big to fit in my saddlebag.
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First Star to the Right and Straight on Till Morning.... At the 90-mile vet check she sat in the middle of the road crying, claiming extreme illness and trying to avoid her nightmarish fears her horse would die of founder or colic, or anything. The last ten miles of trail stretched forever in her mind, black like licorice taffy. After a large measure of TLC from her patient and understanding crew, she and the gelding were out of the check and on the trail again. The entire universe shrank to center on the pair in the moonlight. Time stopped and the world faded into nothingness. They were running in a small, ever-changing pocket of existence, the rhythm of his hooves, the heartbeat of that universe. Ribbons and trail appeared before them and lost substance as they moved past. For the rider, clinging to the saddle, there was no thought, no pain, no emotion, only the instinctive drive to chase past each ribbon as it appeared. Suddenly her horse jumped sideways, eyes and ears frozen forward. Awakened from her trance, she oriented herself on his suspected woods troll, a familiar embankment that meant they were a half-mile from home. Easing him past the scary object, she sent the gelding on, clinging to his neck. As his soft lope swept them across the finish line, she wanted to laugh out loud or cry, but was unable to summon the strength for either. A few small tears trickled down her cheek, the only sign of the enormous pride she felt inside. Becky Huffman Endurance rider, wife, mother of two, and student of author Donna Snyder-SmithThe Howell Equestrian Library
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