This was my first time attending a ride organised by Sport Endurance. I really wanted to do a pleasure ride with Tissy in August and Sunday the 7th was my only free day. All the EGB rides were either on the Saturday or already full, so I went on the hunt for other options.
Tissy isn’t that fussed about going out hacking from home but she absolutely adores new places and going out out. My mission with Tissy is to do 3 ‘new’ to us pleasure rides a year for as long as she enjoys it and is able. I know that doesn’t sound like many but for each ride I like to have had her in 6 weeks ‘training’ (just being consistently ridden 2-3x a week), so that’s 3 and a half months of riding her regularly. If I ride her regularly she loses weight so I have to make sure there’s enough grass (she can’t chew hay) to counteract that, so really I can only really get away with riding her from May to October when we have plenty of grazing. I then like to give her plenty of time off between each 6 week block, so by design 3 rides is what’s achievable for us.
Hoveringham was a lovely little outing on a beautiful sunny day. The ground was rock solid but Tissy was flying in her hoof boots and didn’t slip at all, which I was quite pleased about. We had some lovely company in Rosie and her Haflinger Tilly as we cantered along the river Trent watching the cruisers chug on by. Thank you to the organisers and all their helpers for a lovely day.
We even got a rosette, carrots and some crisps and juice at the end of our ride. I’d really like to get to Long Mynd next year and maybe the Wirral, what would you recommend we tick off our Pleasure rides list?
Beth Endurance 