Last weekend I stopped by the PNER convention.  Usually I take off work Friday and hang out all day going to the seminars all weekend.  This year I ended up having to work Friday, at the last minute, and by Saturday was too tired to get up early and make it to the 8am session.

I knew that I wanted to pick up a copy of Endurance 101 and also one of the new skinny Skye Halters, so I forced myself to head to Portland about 11am.  The weather was beautiful so I enjoyed the drive, but couldn't help but think that I should be out riding!!!

I ran into friend's Glen and Flo and  Shannon and Alex and visited with them briefly before making my purchases and heading over to the Equine Bodyworks seminar.  The seminar was interesting and I picked up a business card;  its always helpful to have the number of a good saddle fitter! 

I started getting a headache towards the end of the seminar and decided to head home early.

I immediately dove into the Endurance 101 book, by equine blogger and endurance diva- Aarene Storms. 

Here is a link to her blog: http://haikufarm.blogspot.com/

Here is where you go to get your own copy of the book:
http://www.endurance-101.com/

I'd already started reading the book on my Kindle, but find that I really prefer to have a hard copy of non-fiction books. 

The book is great, not only full of  information for anyone interested in endurance but also good for those interested in any type of distance riding, or even trail riding.  The author's writing style is easy to read and she gives enough accounts of personal ride experiences to make it almost like you're having a conversation, as opposed to a boring text book style read.

My favorite "tip" involves teaching a horse not to run your knee into trees.  I've ridden for years and have enough arena training to know not to try to turn a horse that is bowing out around corners by pulling on the inside rein.  So I was a little humbled to read Aarene's tip for keeping a horse from scraping your knees.  "Turn his head towards the tree."  Ha! So simple!  So counter-intuitive!  So similar to what you would do to a horse that is bowing out through corners in the arena- why did I not realize this???

Another thing I really enjoyed in this book, (the actual hard copy book) was the pictures and illustrations.  The quality of the photos are excellent and for me they really make the book flow and made me want to see what comes next!

All in all a great purchase, I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in distance riding.  I've already used some of the sidebar lists (such as, "What to take to the vet check")  to start making my list of things I need to purchase or replace before ride season starts up.  Also, I have decided to experiment with Electrolytes this year for Cartman- in hopes of completing a 50 this summer.

I'm anxious to try out the Endurance Skinny halter on Cartman.  I've been trying to decide what to do about a bridle for him as I don't want to totally trash my leather race bridle.  Dazzby's halter bridle "kinda" fits him, but not perfectly.  I think the headstall portion of the bridle will work over the skinny halter.

Now, time to start deciding which rides I want to shoot for this year.  The fliers for the Oregon Outback rides look really interesting, they have showers!!!!