We're Ready Now

[Jackcrook@aol.com]

My new horse, Jasmine Splash, arrived here in the San Diego CA area in 
mid-October.  I purchased a five year old arab mare from Oregon through 
advertisers on endurance.net (Van Gilder Arabians).  We have been preparing 
for our first ride of the 2001 endurance ride season and I think we are there 
now.

It's been many years since I have had a young horse to ready for endurance.  
I am not new to endurance (4,500 miles) and have 1,000 medallions on four 
horses.  Jasmine and I had to get to know each other and work out important 
things like her colors.  We had to deal with tack and saddle fit issues and 
get her going well in a crupper.  She had to adjust to different terrain, 
weather, feed and stabling from what she was used to, and the hardest for 
Jasmine was getting used to going through the dairy with all those black and 
white cows on our training loop.  We progressed nicely and today was my final 
ride on her before the Warner Spring endurance ride next Saturday.  Today we 
added the scoop to her saddle and even had a nice canter and she did very 
well.  Later in the day she got a small trace clip.  Our weather here in So. 
Calif has been near frost at night and in the 80's during the day. &n!
bsp;I have 
been working hard and feel I have done my homework and feel very confident 
that we are finally ready.  Jasmine has done four LD rides in Oregon, but 
this is the first for us as a team.  I currently have her entered in the 50 
for Fire Mountain two weeks later, but will see how she does next weekend in 
the LD.  If I don't feel she is ready for a 50 yet, I will change my entry 
and do another LD ride on her.  The Twenty Mule Team ride in February is a 65 
miler, so will drop her back to the 35 miler for that one because she is only 
five.

Getting a horse ready for the first ride is a lot of work and hopefully we 
are ready.  For those riders in the PS Region, come by and meet Jasmine at 
Warner Springs.  I will be ready, willing and anxious to show her off.

Cindy Crook
Cindy Crook Sewing