Endurance.Net: Consider this...: 06/2021

Sunday, June 27, 2021

Nevada, Missouri, Friends Riding Horses Cross Country To Mount Rushmore

JUN 16, 2021 @ 8:59AM

By Frank J. Buchman

“Cris and Forrest are living their dream.”

The Nevada, Missouri, horsemen left home June 1, 2021, on horseback with one packhorse headed to South Dakota’s Black Hills.

“It’s something I always wanted to do. We decided the window of opportunity was right and just took off,” said Cris Rodriquez.

“I really hadn’t even ridden horses until about two years ago. But then got into riding with Cris and here we are,” added Forrest Drury.

“We really don’t have a set route, just follow our instinct, with advice we’re given along the way,” Rodriquez admitted. They do have solar powered cell phones with maps and also use a GPS global positioning system.

Traveling an average of about 23-miles per day, the horsemen ride both major highways and country backroads.

“We try to take in as much of the different landscapes as we can,” Rodriquez said. “We have ridden up to 36 miles in a day, but that’s too much as hot as it’s getting.”

“The best part of the journey though has been meeting all of the people,” Drury insisted. “Everybody is very congenial, welcoming, interested in what we’re doing...”

Friday, June 25, 2021

Pennsylvania: Riding Stable Offers Second Career For Former Montco D.A.

Patch.com - Full article

Mike Marino was near the end of his term as the Montgomery County district attorney when he had the idea to open a riding stable.

Delaware Valley Journal, News Partner
Posted Wed, Jun 23, 2021 at 4:21 pm ET

By Linda Stein, Delaware Valley Journal

June 23, 2021

Mike Marino was near the end of his term as the Montgomery County district attorney when he had the idea to open a riding stable as a way to keep busy after leaving office. And the name for the stable, "Red Buffalo Ranch" came to him in a dream, he said in a recent interview with the Delaware Valley Journal.

He had no idea the riding stable–which offers trail rides, lessons and a summer camp for kids–would become so successful when he opened it in 1998.

"The saying goes, 'If you build it they will come,'" he said. And although it was shut down for three weeks last year during the pandemic, once Gov. Tom Wolf re-opened the parks the stable, which abuts Evansburg State Park, was back in business.

"Because you're on a horse, you're socially distant so people could ride without the mask on and still be compliant," he said. "Well, people started coming out of the woodwork because people wanted to get away, to get out and our business doubled."

Marino, 79, who grew up as a city kid in Norristown, didn't know much about horses when he got his first steed in 1970. He was an assistant district attorney then making $7,500 a year and his mother asked him if he could afford the horse.

"And I said, 'No, but I'm going to buy him anyway,' and that was my lucky horse," said Marino. "Because of that horse, I ended up here, with property. It was a very fortuitous horse..."

100! Western States Endurance Run is back, includes local threat among elite men

GoldCountryMedia.com - Full Article

Rocklin’s Tollefson set to compete for first time; women’s field strong again

Bill Poindexter Jun 23, 2021 10:30 AM

What happens when excitement clashes with pent-up energy? Show up for the Western States Endurance Run on Saturday and find out.

The field is a little smaller this year as the 100-mile event returns for its Olympic Valley-to-Auburn run, but it’s no less packed with star power, including Jim Walmsley, who broke the course record in 2018, then hacked another 20 minutes off his mark a year later.

Jared Hazen, like Walmsley from Flagstaff, Ariz., was the runner-up in 2019. Rocklin’s Tim Tollefson is in the Western States for the first time and becomes an immediate threat. He won the Bishop High Sierra on May 22 by 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, eight of the top 10 women from 2019 are back in the Western States, including defending champion Clare Gallagher of Boulder, Colo., and runner-up Brittany Peterson of Pocatello, Idaho. Diana Fitzpatrick, president of the board of directors for the Western States Endurance Run, described the international women in the elite field as “exciting...”

Monday, June 14, 2021

Tevis Fever - Ashley Wingert

GoPony.me - Full Article

JUNE 2, 2021 / ASHLEY WINGERT

It never goes away. It might ebb and wane for a time, but it’s always there, waiting.

51 days and counting until this year’s Tevis. This week, I’ve been working on finalizing details and travel arrangements for heading out there to crew again. Within a couple of months following the 2019 ride, Cathy put crew dibs on me for the following year…which, of course, got cancelled. So those crew dibs rolled forward into this year.

Earlier in the year, I was “meh” about it. Not sure I wanted to travel, unsure of how many restrictions would still be in place and have to be dealt with, how many hoops jumped through…just not sure it was worth it. But as plans have started to come together, and as life starts to once again slowly start resembling something a little closer to “normal”, without “new” attached to the front of it…I can feel myself getting excited again...