Endurance Introspection
"To Finish Is To Win"Welcome to Endurance Introspection — a website for new, old, aspiring and contemplative endurance riders
About the Site
Authored by Patti Carey (formerly Patti Stedman), Endurance Introspection is a website for endurance riders, aspiring endurance riders and other sport horse enthusiasts interested in the cross-training aspect of endurance conditioning and training for horses. Patti’s vision for the website is to provide a place for endurance riding enthusiasts interested in the philosophies, training, conditioning strategies and life lessons learned during the act of enduring.
Patti is an AERC (American Endurance Ride Conference) endurance competitor/Ride Manager/former BoD member who truly embraces the sport’s motto of “To Finish Is To Win”.
About Patti
Patti was raised in rural Western New York. She started riding at the age of seven and eventually showing in various disciplines, until she discovered dressage (the art of riding and training a horse in a manner that develops obedience, flexibility, and balance.) in her late teens. She attended Cornell University and received her BS in Animal Science.
While she taught and trained professionally for a few years, it became apparent that a career outside of horses allowed more financial security (and that wackily practical health insurance), so her love of teaching took her in the direction of occupational safety and environmental compliance. She owns two successful businesses, one providing live training and consulting, and the other providing web-based safety training.
Patti began to compete in endurance rides in the mid 1990s. A couple of decades and a few thousand miles of competition later, she has acted as a Ride Manager for the Allegany Shut Up and Ride and was formerly a member of the AERC Board of Directors, Ride Managers’ Committee, and Education Committee. She developed materials for and insurance coverage for AERC Endurance 101 Clinics and has taught dozens of clinics, and encourages others to do the same to give riders new to our sport the skills needed to succeed and a sense of community with other local endurance riders and mentors.
Her passion for sharing her sport led her to creating a web-based course for new and aspiring endurance riders, Endurance Essentials, which can be found at horselearningonline.com
Patti loves combining the disciplines of endurance and dressage, and observing and writing about the inside world of endurance riding competition. Patti currently lives in rural South Carolina, with her horses, dogs, cats and various vermin.
Header photo by Carien Schippers @imagequine
Musings from Mile 87
Writer’s Note: This was drafted on April 23, 2021, nearly a year ago. I opted to delay publishing it until today. I edited it some. Why publish it at all? Because the details of my story may not be that important, but the message it sends to (mostly) women in a...
Pam Karner’s Gaucho Derby Adventure
(Photo credit to Sarah Farnsworth.) Note from Patti: Anyone who knows my friend Pam Karner knows that she is a force of nature. She is a veterinarian and a Ride Manager and an endurance rider, and beyond that she is unfiltered and generous and hilarious and just a wee...
Alexa, turn up the volume!
A few days ago, I finally caught up with Kathy to ride, and we had a long, chatty walk on our boys. It was Iggy this time for me, which felt like going home in so many ways. In the weeks that had passed since we'd gotten together, much had happened. Sharing the news...
Unpeeling the Iggy Onion
Elise asked me not too long ago— What is your favorite thing about endurance riding? “Oh, that’s easy. It’s getting to know a horse so intimately well that you can ride him 100 miles in one day. And oh, the people, the crazy people!” My favorite horse people, and...
Benching Grit
Disclaimer: Over the years I have written about all sorts of personal struggles. Sometimes I wonder why. Is it a way to untangle the strings in my brain and process them? Is it the need to have my voice heard? Is it some sort of pathological ego gratification? Much of...
Dunkin’s Diary – Dressage and Boundaries, Part 487
Dear Loyal Readers, Once again, sitting with my laptop and my second cup of coffee, watching the sun rise while Tom indulges in the outrageous act of sleeping in until roughly 7am, I am introspective about the fact that most of life lessons are repetitive ones. Recent...
Boundaries, Buttons and Dunkin
(Photo by Derith Vogt.) I asked a group of my long-time horse friends online recently about an old adage we seemed to agree exists, but collectively we couldn't definitively credit the horseman who wrote it or said it. (Gold star to anyone who can provide evidence of...
Flip charts, QR Codes and the In-Between Magic
A few weeks ago, I was purchasing pink baby Carhartt overalls at Tractor Supply when the cashier asked if they were for my grandchild. My first instinct was to be insulted. This lasted about 7 milliseconds while I reminded myself that while I still looked forward to...
Windshield Time
My Dad, bless him, has been a powerful influence in my life. He taught me to drive, and I marvel at his patience and self-control, thinking back on it. I was apparently unaware that one should slow down prior to making a turn. If it was possible for a Ford LTD station...
The Sisyphus of Normal and Just Being Sam
It’s been a hot minute since I sat down to actually write a shitty first draft. I wrote a piece about using my humor as a self-defense mechanism, which in turn was me using my humor as a self defense mechanism. I stuck a pin in that. We didn’t publish it. Not...
Throwing Boulders and Chipping Away at It
It was a few months ago, sitting in bed over coffee -- right in the thick of so much change that it felt a bit like living in the eye of a hurricane -- that I mentioned this study to Tom about the Holmes Rahe Stressor Scale. I was laughing....
Check box. Live life. Cancer.
From Sam through Patti... I have breast cancer. There, I said it. I never thought something like this would ever happen to me. I eat mostly healthy, I exercise, I don’t smoke, and I have a social drink. I’ve never really had any health issues my whole life to...