February 17 2022
by Merri Melde-Endurance.net
CH-SH Mo Motion Jack, aka Brave
9-year-old gelding
American Saddlebred
owned by Natalie Law
560 AERC Endurance miles
75 AERC LD miles
1125 AERC + EDRA + WDRA Endurance miles, 100% completion.
At 16.3 hands, he’s the height of a big giraffe, especially when you’re trying to mount. And his name: “Brave - that’s the worst name you could call him, he’s more like Chicken Little!” Natalie says, though he has grown a little bolder as he grows older.
Natalie bought Brave from her husband’s aunt as a 6-year-old, for her husband to ride as a gaited mountain horse. He was bred by Shelah Wetter, of Blue Haven Stable in Deer Park, Washington.
When Natalie’s primary riding horse was injured, she borrowed Brave from her husband to ride for a while. “I started riding him and just training him to be a good ol’ mountain trail horse, because that’s what we bought him for. And I thought, well, he can do Endurance - any horse can do Endurance if you take the time and the energy with them.”
However, Brave’s first Endurance ride, the 2019 XP Mount Carmel II Pioneer 50-miler in Utah, didn’t go so well. He was accompanied by Flash, the incomparable monster 11.2-hand (super brave) Hackney pony also on his first 50, ridden by Natalie’s daughter Kyla.
“We got lost, and turned it into 68 miles, and we finished in 11 hours and 45 minutes. I remember 40 miles in, thinking, the pony hasn’t calmed down, and Brave hates this. He hates every second of this.
“After the ride I called Shelah and said, ‘I don’t think he’s an Endurance horse.’ She said, ‘You know what, just give him some time, let him recover. And just let him build back up.’
“So I just kept training him to be a good mountain horse, and he’s getting stronger and stronger and stronger. I spent all my time on him. And he just gradually has built into an incredible Endurance horse. He loves it. He absolutely loves it.”
Brave is gaited, and he does everything from racking to pacing to stepping pace to trot and canter, just kind of blending through all of it, which can come in handy on a variety of terrain.
“On training,” Natalie says, “I really work to strengthen his rack and his trot and his canter. Those are the gaits I’m very specific when out training. But when we get to an Endurance ride, I turn the reins to him, and I let him pick the speed for the condition and the trail we’re on.
“So if we’re heading at an incline, moving up in elevation, he’ll trot. But if we’re going on a downhill slope, he’ll move into a rack. So he just knows how to change the gears based on what the terrain is. That way he is most efficient for what we’re doing.”
Brave is a good and steady multi-day horse, having finished all 3 days of the City of Rocks Pioneer in 2020 and 2021.
And for a finale last season, Team Law - Natalie and Brave, Kyla and Flash - completed the Tevis Cup last year in their first attempts at a 100-miler. They finished in 36th and 37th place, in a ride time of 21:18. Brave has not only turned into a solid mountain horse, but a true 100-mile Endurance horse.
Natalie is sold on the American Saddlebred breed for Endurance. “They’re not what people think. People think of Saddlebreds and they think of this crazy, psycho show world horse. But when you pull them out of the show ring and treat them like a mountain horse, they’re an incredible combination of athletic abilities and brains.
“They’re massive, they’re huge, they walk around like they own the place. It’s quite entertaining. But they’re just incredible athletes.”
** “CH–SH” means Brave has earned his Champion-Sport-horse bloodline status on his registration papers through the American Saddlebred Horse Association Registry.
***Coming soon: the book Kyla and Flash: A Race Against Time, written by Claire Eckard with Kyla & Natalie Law. Stay tuned! https://claireeckardauthor.com/kyla-%26-flash
