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Re: [RC] [So_Cal_Endurance] Decade team Recognition Updated (long) - FXLivestock

In a message dated 06/23/2008 10:36:37 AM Pacific Standard Time, vchorsegal@xxxxxxx writes:

Yes Tammy- that is a good point ! It is also a feat to have nice horses who
will pack our friends &family safely on the rides !

- Heidi Helly


Thanks Tammy and Heidi for posting on this subject.


This is the perfect opportunity to thank Cherry Stockton for her time, effort, and excellent horsemanship with my horse, Freebee.  Freebee competed from 1992-2004 and never missed one ride season.  During those years, he completed multidays, 50 & 75 mile rides and finished Tevis twice.  Many of his miles were in the Top Ten and he earned multiple BCs and a couple wins.  After I became very involved with dog agilty in the late 1990s, I had no time to compete in endurance and Freebee went to live and compete with Cherry.  I had every intention in competing with him again when I started back endurance riding a year or two later,  but found that Cherry and Freebee were a great team.  It was to Freebee's benefit to stay with her

Freebee's ride record and long competition history is definitely due to a "joint" effort by both Cherry and myself.  I don't think Freebee could have reached his highest potential if either one of us had been his only rider.  Thanks to Cherry, Freebee finished  his second Tevis 10 years after his first endurance ride at High Rock Country. 

It is really fortunate when you can find another rider, family or friend, who can appreciate and care for your endurance horse as much as you.  Actually in my case, I think Cherry appreciated and cared for my horse better than I ever could.  She could look at his faults, idiosyncrasies, and quirks and deal with them in a different way than I did.  This really did bring Freebee to another level of endurance.  I am really fortunate to have Cherry campaigning Fox for me this year.  Again, Cherry is able to bring a different perspective and insight with Fox that I didn't know about.  After being Fox's only rider for over 6 years, I really didn't think there was much more for me to learn about her.

I know there are probably a lot of decade "horses" out there that will never earn "Decade" recognition because they had more than one rider, have served as mount for an entire family, or were sold to a more appropriate competition home.  I hope that the reason that there is no recognition for "Decade" horses is because there are just too many in our sport to list.  Wouldn't that be a great kudos for endurance riding as an equestrian sport....too many horses still competing after 10 years!

Kim











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