THOROUGHBREDS are traditionally not seen as the horse of choice for most riders when it comes to an endurance event.
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But Wauchope's Elizabeth Moir rewrote the history books at Tumut on November 28 when she guided Baribo to a NSW state championship middleweight endurance riding victory.
Baribo only had a handful of starts as a racehorse, but he did have Hugh Bowman on board in his early days.
The 160-kilometre endurance race last month started at midnight and saw horse and rider cover 4040 metres of elevation in just under 13 hours.
"Endurance riding is not as common as a lot of horse events you see around here," Moir said.
"You have dressage, show riding and campdrafting but there's not too much endurance riding around the North Coast anymore."
Five separate legs of varying distances made up the 160-kilometre ride.
"It's a very tactical sport and to the general public riding overnight would be an experience, but it's the norm for us," she said.
"People think we're a little crazy because we start at 12am, go all night and most of the next day, but the adrenaline takes over and you get it done.
"It's what you train for all year round."
The longer hours traditionally are in the morning during the early course rounds - riders have to cover 45 kilometres, then 40, 35, 25 and then 15.
"Our time was 12 hours and 48 minutes and I had one of my good friends Ben Hudson who was 20 minutes behind me," Moir said.
"The pressure was on in the last leg because I knew he was hot on my tail so I had to push to make sure I was first across the line."
It was the 27-year-old's first state championship success having started riding as a four-year-old.
"I've been riding since I was four, but completed my first endurance ride at 10 years old," Moir said.
"I then got into endurance more heavily when I was 18 years old so it's been nearly 10 years of doing the sport," she said.
Moir paid tribute to Baribo's owners Jolene Cole and Chris Geddes.
"I owe that win to those guys because I don't own the horse," she said.
"He's an off-the-track thoroughbred so that's pretty special because it's not exactly a thoroughbred dominant sport.
"The course was really tough because it was 4040 metres of elevation so it was just hills, hills and more hills."
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