The $5 Horse Endures! A “Horatio Alger” horse story By Nancy Brannon Everybody loves a good “Horatio Alger” horse story, and Steffanie Waddington has one about her Arabian endurance horse. A few years ago a woman she knew passed away from cancer, and part of her husband’s job in finalizing the estate was to find a home for his wife’s two horses. Steffanie’s friend Jana Smith found out about the horses, got the husband’s phone number, and the two made plans to go see the horses. Both were Arabians, and she and Jana liked what they saw and decided each would adopt a horse. The husband didn’t want to give them away, but thought some meager compensation would be acceptable. So Steffanie paid $5 for the horse she chose: a bay gelding named Ibn Tom Terrific. “In Arabic, Ibn means 'son of,’” Steffanie explained, “and he is the son of TC Tom Terrific. He was bred in Williston, TN and born in 1993." Steffanie took Ibn, boarded him at Cherokee Valley Farm and Stable in Michigan City, Mississippi and started taking riding lessons on him. The folks at Cherokee Valley specialize in endurance horse training and conditioning. Meanwhile, Steffanie was competing in 25- to 35-mile endurance rides on Rumor, her other horse. In March 2008, Steffanie planned to ride Rumor in the City Slickers Endurance Ride at Shelby Farms in Memphis, TN, but a week before the ride, Rumor was injured. So Steffanie had to take Ibn instead, on the 25-mile ride. She rode with a friend whose horse was in good condition, but the rider was not. Before completing the ride, her friend dismounted, said she could not ride a step further, and encouraged Steffanie to finish the ride. Steffanie did, but came in dead last - 41st! However, their next ride one month later was a different story: Steffanie and Ibn placed fourth in a 30-mile ride. Since then, Steffanie has been riding Ibn in a lot of endurance rides, in the limited distance 25- to 35-mile rides. They have completed 395 miles this year, enough to become Southeast Regional Champion in the American Endurance Ride Conference (AERC) for mileage in the distances they ride. The southeast region includes Mississippi, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Kentucky. Steffanie and Ibn rode 245 miles last year. In all, the two have completed 25 rides, 15 of them in 2009, and have ridden a total of 665 miles. “I plan to make a 1,000-miler of him,” Steffanie said. Ibn is aptly named. “He’s been a Terrific endurance horse!” Steffanie praised him. “He has the qualities you want in a good endurance horse. You want a horse whose pulse rate comes down [to normal] in a short period of time, and his comes down to where it needs to be in about a minute. He always wants to go and I can tell he really likes doing the rides. Arabians are the horse of choice for distance riding. They don’t carry a lot of extra weight, or extra muscling like Quarter Horses. Their blood vessels are close to the surface, so they can cool off quickly. And Endurance Riding is a terrific sport! You meet people from all over. And the horses are treated very well. There are veterinary checks at the rides and horses are judged on whether or not they are fit to continue. If they are not fit to continue, you don’t get credit for the ride. It’s all about the horses!” For more information about AERC, visit http://www.aerc.org/ or about Cherokee Valley Stable, visit http://www.cherokeevalleystable.com/endurance.php.