I would like to share with you some of my riding memories from this past summer. Without good friends this story would not be possible, so I would like to start out first by thanking Cindy Young and Dixie Brooks for being so generous in allowing me to use their faithful endurance horses.

In the sport of endurance riding, a 55-year-old grandparent can ride with a 10-year-old grandchild without either of them holding the other back. They can ride side by side and be of great help to each other. What other sport can you think of that both young and old compete as equals?

Since I do not have any children of my own, over the years I recruited my sister's kids to ride endurance with me with some success. But when they lost interest, grew up and started then their own families, I had to look towards their children.

I will not push any of the kids into riding; they have to show an interest in horses first. A horse person knows when they have found a "horsey kid" by how they willingly jump in and help with anything just to be around horses, from brushing them, cleaning stalls or just standing around petting them.

Well, this past year it seems that I have finally hit pay dirt and have one that may have that love for the horses. My new recruit is my 9-year-old niece, McKaleigh Burton. She would ask me every time she saw me if she could ride a horse. The only riding experience she ever had was on my horses on a lead line, mostly on holidays.

My horses are not safe for inexperienced riders, much less kids, but she always begged me to go. I did not own a kid-broke horse for her to learn how to ride on but I did have a very good friend who agreed to loan me her 19-year-old endurance campaigner, Melaxia.

Over the summer riding lessons began, teaching McKaleigh how to turn, stop, trot and eventually on to posting, of course in a confined area first before heading out to the trails. By the end of summer both horse and rider seemed fit enough to compete in a 30-mile ride.

When the Spook Run ride rolled around in October, we made plans to ride with Lois McAfee and her grandchild, Lexie, who is also a classmate of McKaleigh's. We all had a blast! The kids could not believe the ride was already over when we came to the finish back in camp.

A couple of weeks later we rode another 30 that was really tough, with a lot of mud and rocks, but still had a great time. I was really surprised when my niece asked if she could get Malexia out to ride around camp only a couple of hours after we completed the ride. I knew for sure at that moment I had a good recruit in McKaleigh!

I had planned on entering the last ride of the season, the Kentucky Diehards. I wanted to ride the 50 on my horse and thought it would be great to take my niece along as she could just stop halfway through the ride at the 25-mile mark. But as we all quickly learn in the sport of endurance, nothing always goes the way we plan.

One week before the ride, our borrowed gentle little horse came up a little bit stiff. I thought the riding season was over for my niece but another good friend came to our rescue, offering her 15-year-old safe endurance horse, "Cowboy." Even though McKaleigh was disappointed in not being able to ride the horse that she had come to love and learned to ride on, she was grateful that she had another horse to ride.

After a couple of short training rides to make sure she and Cowboy were compatible, we were off to the Kentucky Diehards ride. After the first loop, which was 25 miles, Mc­Kaleigh wanted to continue and did the entire 50-mile ride! McKaleigh did a good job with Cowboy, and we all had a lot of fun. The ride was a success -- so successful that we negotiated to keep Cowboy in my barn for McKaleigh and all the junior riders in my family to enjoy for years to come.