Endurance Photos: Fire Mountain 2000

This is a continuing series of photos (albeit not a regular one) that illustrates the differences between an endurance seat and a dressage seat.

Sorry that it's a bit blurry, but scanning photos comes with limitations.  In this photo, we are partway through a very cold 50 mile ride.  You'll notice that Montoya is looking where we're going while I smile goofily at the photographer.  And as usual, we are traveling on a loose rein.  One thing I notice is that her stride in back is very short.  This is probably because there was a pile-up (not literally) of horses in front of us, and Montoya had slowed her pace in anticipation of a burst of speed to pass them.  I am sure she's calculating which direction would be her best bet to get around them.

A note about photographing an endurance ride: it's common in the Pacific Southwest for a photographer to station himself somewhere on the trail early in the morning.  He'll typically place a sign 50 or so yards in front of where he'll be so that riders can adequately space themselves out as they pass his position.  This can cause all sorts of chaos.  The horses frequently don't see the photographer (Montoya didn't) which can cause some hilarious shots if they do notice at the last second.  As the riders space themselves apart, the horse in the rear sometimes gets antsy waiting for his turn as his buddies all seemingly trot off without him.  That rider usually gets a photo with a very alert horse!

We finished this 50 miles in 24th place out of 73 riders with a ride time of 7 hours and 6 minutes.