It is not for the faint of heart: a hundred hard-won miles of rock, dust, elevation, uphill, downhill, imposing mountains, plunging canyons, wild rivers, wilderness, extreme heat, suffocating humidity, extraordinary effort, and luck - good or bad, all in various doses, riding your horse across the Sierra Nevada mountains, in the dark and the light and the dark, all done within a 24 hour time limitâ¦
Tevis Cup - Test of rider and horse endurance
With the 2016 Tevis Cup endurance ride countdown at just two months to starting time comes the release of Merri Melde's new ebook, Tevis Cup Magic: Taking on the World's Toughest 100 Mile Endurance Ride.
With the 2016 Tevis Cup endurance ride countdown at just two months to starting time comes the release of Merri Melde's new ebook, Tevis Cup Magic: Taking on the World's Toughest 100 Mile Endurance Ride.
Merri's account of her monumental, magical, marvelous Tevis Cup adventure in 2009 is not a story of a Top Ten finisher; it's not a story of someone who spent weeks, months, or years strategically planning to conquer the Tevis trail. It's one of those adventures she had never, ever planned on; it was another one that just fell into her lap.
It's an epic story with a bit of excitement, tension, slight madness, humor, and that ol' Tevis Luck doled out by the Tevis Gods - good and bad. The story catapults you into the saddle, gripping the reins, racing the clock to cross the finish line in the 24 hour time limit, on a beautiful, gallant gray gelding.
Merri Melde, The Equestrian Vagabond, is a horse photographer, writer, photojournalist, artist, horse packer, spotted owl hooter, wildlife technician, Raven fanatic, trail builder, carriage driver, sound engineer, theatre techie, world traveler, clawhammer banjo player, racetrack groom, owner of The Most Beautiful Horse On The Planet (Stormy), and rabid obsessed endurance rider. But not all at the same time.
She is author of the acclaimed Soul Deep in Horses: Memoir of an Equestrian Vagabond. She has written for over a dozen magazines, photographed for over 2 dozen magazines around the world, and traveled in over 3 dozen countries, sometimes seeking adventure and enlightenment, and often chasing horses.
Visit www.TheEquestrianVagabond.com to see her published works, or contact her at TheEquestrianVagabond@gmail.com