Three Shires Endurance Ride – Estrid’s first 40km

Well first of all, we made it to the venue!!!! I was disproportionately nervous for this ride which I think you can really tell in the video. I’m usually quite a positive human being but after the last couple of years I think I’ve started to expect things to go wrong rather than right. Something I need to shake off before it becomes learnt negativity.

Anyway, I was nervous about getting there, I was nervous that Estrid would be nervous and her HR would be too high to vet, I was nervous about doing my first 40km barefoot and booted, I was nervous about getting the HR at the final vetting. Basically at every tiny step I was just waiting for something to go wrong. Spoiler alert, IT DIDN’T!

First of all thank you to the Cromwell EGB group for putting on a fantastic ride, to all the helpers and to the sponsors that supported it. It was a great route, well marked with excellent field margins that went on for miles.

Dan did an excellent job crewing all by himself, dealing with a nervous rider and a nervous horse. It’s one thing crewing a horse you know well, that basically has a crewing handbook that comes along with it, it’s an entirely different skill to crew a horse that we don’t know very well yet and we don’t know what it’s going to want, when or how it’s going to react.

Estrid was incredible out on course. She was forward, she was keen and she was asking to go faster, but not running through the bridle out of control faster, she wanted to power from behind lift up and have fun faster. It was a dream 3 hours, she passed horses, left horses at route splits, lead out in front and followed from behind. She was balanced and responsive and I couldn’t have been prouder of her.

She was much better than expected at the venue, we had a HR of 48 to start and 60 to finish. We had a HR of 57 in under 5 mins at the end but every horse that went past, or thing that moved, or gust of wind, basically anything had it shooting back up. So we used the ‘do nothing at all but wait’ crewing method and grazed for 20mins before heading to vet. She was also very cold without her rug, so although her HR was in the 40’s when we presented to vet as soon as the rug came off she started shivering and her eyes were out on stalks. I wasn’t even sure that her HR would be under 64 but thankfully it was and she stood pretty well for it too. Our trot ups were entertaining…the last one using all lanes and chasing after the horse trotting up in the next door lane, but at least she was keen and sound if not in a straight line.

We finished on a speed of 13.5kph and came 3rd in the Performance formula, thank you to Enduro Equine for our prize! It was an excellent day, with exactly the result I hoped for: a fun 40km on a horse that seemed to love the job and a 40km novice qualifier in the bag. Hopefully with all the positive steps of our first ride I won’t be so nervous for the next one!