Red Barn Run... Our First 50!

Red Barn Run March 24, 2012

Marca Registrada  is now an excellent endurance horse! He has been on many trips all over the southeast learning how to behave while out and about doing LD (25-30 mile limited distance rides) and Competitive Trail rides.  While the sport is filled mainly with Arabians, he is a 15.2 hand Paso Fino (really, true measurement!) who loves to go  and is getting quite fit. We really think he will do well representing his breed in this venue to become another wonderfully versatile and athletic Paso Fino! We were working hard in the 2009-2010 season  competing in limited distance rides to try and get him trained up for some 50 mile competition in 2011. Unfortunately my schedule didn't allow that, so we went for our first 50 mile ride at Red Barn Run in 2012!  He is very willing and competitive, so my biggest problem is actually slowing him down! We are having fun, learning, and getting better from every conditioning ride, and every competitive ride we attend. We love the competition, and the wonderful people involved in this intense sport. We hope to really shine now that we have spent a couple of seasons training, conditioning, fixing tack and horse shoe issues, and learning so much from the wonderful endurance pros out there on the trails! This winter weather has been pretty mild and conducive to training so....

Our first 50 mile endurance ride at Red Barn Run in March of 2012!
Finished and came in 7th in our division!

The most AWESOME day ever! The weather forecast changed every day we looked at it the week before the ride. Started out sunny and cool, perfect weather for a ride! Then it turned rainy and 55 degrees :/... not so nice. We went anyway figuring worse case scenario we could not compete and I could volunteer under the protective canopies ;). Well, turned out to be quite nice, warm, but a nice cool breeze and overcast in the morning keeping the temps down :). We... by we I mean I, had the idea of taking it really slow to be sure we could finish, but The loved Marco had other ideas! We went faster than planned, but it was the flatland so we were ok. Finished in a little over 7 hours with a VERY happy and still energetic Marco. That was the best thing, he did not even flat walk until mile 47, so I think our pace was ok for him ;). Loved the ride, the camp was awesome, the wine tasting was quite nice... Really nice place to do your first 50 :)

Red Barn is further south, and is mostly sandy flat trails... as you can see! I was still working out the bugs with my new GPS, so ignore that I seemed to stop in a different place than I started ;).

Orange Loop
Blue Loop
Yellow Loop