My name is Jacob Gran. I started training for the Manzanita Endurance Ride eight months ago when I asked Dorann Laperch to ride one of her best horses, Mister. Unfortunately, Mister came up lame in March and would be laid up for at least nine months so I did not have a horse. Fortunately, Bonne-Fyre Farms has backup endurance horses.
My new horse was a great mare named Bambi. Bambi is one of the best horses on the farm as she has the mind and physical ability to do a 100 mile ride. I felt lucky to have such a good horse to ride my first ride.
Now I had a horse and was ready to go, I thought. Then came the training rides. Over a six-month period the experience of training for an endurance ride I learned many things. One is the dedication it takes to keep on training. Trust me, there were countless times I said, "I do not know if I am going to be able to do this" but I kept on going and thought of the finishing reward. A t-shirt!
But I have to admit the t-shirt given by the ride manager, Terry Woolley Howe, was not the main reward for completing the ride. There were rock formations like I had never seen in my whole life on the ride, some of the most beautiful scenery in California and a very relaxing and peaceful place to ride a horse.
Apart from my awesome horse I had great tack. My dad, Bryan Gran, made sure everything was polished and adjusted to the last velcro attachment. But the best part about my tack was the team shirts. My awesome Uncle Jim made the shirts for my first ride saying "Manzanita 2003 Jacob's Ride Team." Everyone on the trail knew it was my first ride and it was very cool.
This ride was a real team effort. The team was always there with me on the training rides to help me learn the sport of endurance.
My ride team was Greggor and Sue Magnussun, Rebecca Florio, Mike Tomlinson and most of all Dorann LaPerch and my dad, who were with me every step of the entire ride. I had a ride crew to help me at the vet checks that I cannot thank enough--my mom, Stacy; sister Sydney, and Debbie, Mathew and Scott Tomlinson. This was a real team effort and I canÕt thank them enough.
About an hour before the ride started I was getting both excited, nervous, and had a lot of anxiety about getting on my horse Bambi. When the ride started I was very happy that it was a controlled walk start so no horse would fly by us until after about a mile and a half. Then, when my team got past the controlled start we started to do a fast pace trot, which I expected, but about two miles into the ride my horse Bambi took a huge trip and I fell forward on her neck. My first thought was that she was lame, but fortunately she wasnÕt. Then I was starting to think every time she stretched her neck to relax she was going to tip so it caused me to pull her head back every time. Little did I realize that I was actually working against my horse and it was not very fun.
We came into the vet check and my arms were sore from battling with my horse. We vetted Bambi through in good shape and it was time to get back on. Finally, I let Bambi have her head a little and we both relaxed.
By the end of the ride I said to myself, "It's over already." I swear the second half of that ride flew by like a gust of wind.
During the ride I learned a lot of things. One is to never battle with your horse for the first eight miles of a ride; two is that the Manzanita Endurance Ride has some of the most beautiful scenery I have seen in my whole life; and last is how much dedication it takes to do an endurance ride. You canÕt just hop onto a horse and say, "I'm going to go do a 25 mile ride." It takes countless hours of training your horse to properly condition it for 25 miles and most importantly you have to build up your own stamina to do an endurance ride.
I have to say though if there were two people in the world to get stuck with on an endurance ride it would be my dad and most of all Dorann. They taught me every stinking thing in the book about endurance riding and how to condition your horse. So thank you to all the people who have supported me, crewed for me, and helped me through the whole way. I would also like to thank Terry Woolley Howe for such a great ride.
I had fun and the last question to my dad was "When can I ride Tevis with you?"
