06/26/2024
Ride Like the Wind Again,
Saturday, June 22nd
3 riders from our Ranch: Laura Rye, Becca Jansen and Diane McDougall, all travelled up to Kansas to attend the “Ride Like the Wind Again” Endurance event. It was a well run event, specifically Melissa Vadnais Martinez, the ride Manager, did a good job and they enjoyed the weekend.
Every once in a while, something exceptional happens, so by way of this recount of the race, I get to introduce to you, Laura Rye, who has been with our family for 22 years. Laura came to buy a horse from Kris and Brenda over 20 years ago and has never left. Her full time job over the years, was to start up young horses, continuing their training/ exposure, making safe mounts, and ultimately doing all the physical preparation on a horse in order for them to start competing at a high levels in Endurance. Through the years, Laura has started/prepared MANY horses, and we; the Harrison-Sisters Jenna Leah-Mandy have enjoyed the fruit of her work, as have numerous other competitors.
Always in the background, but this year, in 2024, Laura decided to take her own mare, “Destiny” (a Mustang/ Arabian), who was feral when she got her, and compete her. This process of getting Destiny to a competitive place, took Laura 3 years and several preparatory endurance competitions. This weekend, Laura believed that her mare was ready to run at the front at the 50 mile, and the reward was 1st place, followed by Becca Jansen , whom laura mentored for many years on one of our homebred geldings.
In addition to the 50 mile event, we also had Diane McDougall competing in the 30 mile, with a relatively new horse to her, “Lilly”. This pair also took 1st place. The entire ranch family celebrates when an individual commits to an undertaking in this sport, and ultimately succeeds. When you start a new horse, to be able to run at higher speeds takes 3 years to prepare, and there is no assurance that they will have the makeup to be able to do this, only time tells.
