It’s that time of year – right? Thanksgiving and a time to recount everything in our lives we are thankful for – this one day. We are all incredibly guilty of this – only being mindful of something when we have to, but in reality I’m thankful everyday for many things I may not say out-loud.

So yeah, this is a blog centered around my horses and the endurance journey, but first and foremost I’m thankful for my family; for A husband that is my partner for life and the 2 kids g*d has graced us with. Without Doug’s support, it would have been much more difficult to accomplish what I did this past season. When I tally it up, we attended 7 rides – 5 endurance rides (LDs + a day of volunteering), 2 “fun rides” with friends, plus a 3 day clinic. Considering my best year previously was attending 3, and that was 4 years ago, that is a lot!

I’m of course thankful for Sully, and the connections that led me to him. Always thankful for the local, and non-local, riding buddies that I’ve met for conditioning rides, fun rides, and gotten to ride with at a endurance rides. I’m thankful that my husband and kids “understand” the depth of my passion and that Skyler enjoys riding too, and especially that everyone’s overall that health is good. Also thankful to have found a farrier who competes in Endurance and was willing to try new things for us. I’m thankful for Linda and the care Prophecy received with her, and helping me figure out the logistics of getting him back here to be a buddy horse on leased land next-door (someday, that is a standstill at the moment). I’m thankful to have that goofy boy back in my life, and hopeful that the time off has helped him heal some and that he might be usable for Skyler to walk along on in the future.

Now it is the 2020 ride season and I’m looking to move up in the world to Endurance level, aka 50 mile rides. My goals currently are to keep him/us in shape over the winter – fingers crossed for cooperative weather – and be ready to start with a 50 at our first spring ride. The weather will probably play a big role in determining which ride that will be; there are so many good options within that ~5hr hauling range from home (that allows me to take the least time off of work and thus attend more rides), so I need to pick something and aim for it! And if we aren’t ready, well I know we are good to keep doing LDs and move up when the stars do align.
We’ve done a few more fun rides around town, and been lucky to grab some good weather since Fort Valley, including a Black Friday mountain stroll 🙂

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