The American Endurance Ride Conference National Championships will go down in history as the fastest winning times for the Nationals.

Held October 14 (100 miles) and October 16 (55 miles), out of H. Cooper Black Recreation Area and on the Sand Hills State Park near Patrick, South Carolina, the course was challenging with slight but constant elevation changes in sand, sometimes deep sand.

Valerie Kanavy and Spectacular Gold (Tikisflaming Jet x Hals Metourmaline) won the 100-mile and lightweight championship with an amazing course time of 7 hours 55 minutes. Nicki Meuten riding Not Tonight (MC Zoulou x FF Carrera) completed 20 minutes later to earn the Reserve and Featherweight Champion titles.

The 55-mile championship and featherweight division was won by Kim Orr on Reach For The Gold (Tashkent x CJ Halynova), owned by Valerie and Larry Kanavy. Valerie Kanavy was reserve and lightweight champion on Go Raven (Flaming Tigre x Halianna), aka Gold Raven. The 55-mile race was won in an unbelievable 3 hours 29 minutes! Kim Orr said, "I haven't ridden so stupid (fast) since I first started endurance riding. The pace was just so fast and insane but we had to stay with the pacesetters if Valerie Kanavy and I had any hope of winning."

Also notable was that all four of these top horses had been nominees to the World Equestrian Games but withdrew due to training differences between the chef d’équipe and owners of the horses.

Best Condition awards in both distances went to Kanavy's horses, Spectacular Gold and Gold Raven. (Gold Raven was recently featured as a special edition Breyer Horse.)

*See complete coverage of the ride in the January 2011 issue of AHW.