Endurance horse race training

Christoph Schork

22,000+ Life Time Miles
205+ 1st Place Finishes
(world record)
80+ Best Conditions
380+ TOP TEN FINISHES
400+ COMPLETIONS
80+ 2nd Place Finishes

• Quilty Gold Cup winner, 2007
• Overall Region Champion in
1999, 2000, 2002,
2005, 2006, 2010
• Middleweight Region Champion in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2008, 2010
• 2003 & 2009 Mountain Zone PanAm/NAC Team Member
• Since 2004 National Equestrian Team Member
• 1993 World Champion Ski Archery
• High Altitude Mountaineer

Christoph Schork trains himself as hard and consistent as he does the horses. He has been a Ski Instructor for over 20 years. The last 13 years he has been teaching skiing, training his horses for endurance racing, ride and ties, climbing and flying, in Jackson, WY and Victor, ID.

He is one of the top instructors at Jackson Mountain Resort and teaches the Steep and Deep camps offered throughout the ski season. He has climbed and skied all the major peaks in the Tetons and Wind River Mountains. He and his faithful dog, Tilley, have been published in a book, Teton Skiing: A History & Guide to the Teton Range, by Thomas Turiano.

He started his career in the German Army at the ripe young age of 20. During these years he dedicated himself to learning the mountaineering skills it would take for him to climb mountains in the 25,000 ft range (without oxygen of course!) and then ski down. He’s done incredible ice and rock climbing, high altitude mountain expeditions and kayak river exploration all around the World. Once out of the Army he headed to the United States and the mountains of Park City, UT.

While he was in Park City, UT, he taught Alpine Skiing, was a Ski School director at Jeremy Ranch Nordic Ski School, and participated in two new sports, Ski Archery and Ski Joring. It was there he met Olympic and World Archery Champion, Ed Eliason, who was pioneering the sport of Ski Archery (Archery Biathlon) and became Christophs mentor in Archery. Christoph showed Ed some techniques in cross-country skating. Together they were the nucleus for the rise of the sport of Archery Biathlon in the USA. Christoph went on to win 5 National Championships and the 1993 World Ski Archery Championships. In addition to this, he won the Ski Joring event thanks to a fast horse, his skiing capabilities, and bold rider.

His interest in sports, horses and wild countries led him to work for several years as a guide for Boojum Expeditions. Mongolia has always fascinated him. He has guided several horse riding and river trips, throughout Mongolia and Asia. Mongolia has a special place in his heart, with the beautiful wild country, the Mongolian history of Genghis Khan, and the nomadic lifestyle of the Mongolian people.

To add to his incredible list, he is a top endurance instructor (whether it is riding, biking, running or skiing), flight instructor, glider instructor, Farrier, and Realtor.

Christoph invites you to come to this beautiful canyon land area to learn about, heat training, cold training, mountain bike training, running, all forms of cross training for yourself and your horse, that enables you and your horse to compete or complete any endurance ride/race from 25 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles and any combination of multi-day distances.

Dian Woodward

12,000+ Life Time Miles
2003 Region 6 AHA Championship Top Five
• 2009 National 50-mile Heavyweight Champion
• 2002 Best Condition IAHA National Championship 50-Mile
• 2002 IAHA National Championship Top Ten 50-Mile
100+ Top Ten Finishes
20 Best Conditions
25+ 1st Place Finishes
20+ 2nd Place Finishes
230+ Completions

Horses are my life! My whole life has revolved around learning how to ride, train, condition, and rehabilitate the endurance sport horse. I now over 6,000 miles of completions including the grueling TEVIS CUP 100 miles in 1 day.

I started reading about horses at a very young age, which led to my desire to study Veterinary Medicine. I received an Associated Science degree from a Community College, concentrating on Veterinary Science. I graduated from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, California, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Animal Science. During my college years, I really started learning about horse conformation, muscles, bones, tendons, nutrition, breeding and how their internal system works.

As a gift to myself for graduation, I purchased my first 2-year old Arabian, to pursue the “glory” of endurance riding. Using this level of higher learning, I applied it to the sport of endurance riding. I had a lot of eye opening experiences in bringing a 2 year old up to the level of a 50-mile endurance horse, having had no endurance racing experience to fall back on. This was the beginning of my in-depth learning on how to prepare for your first endurance ride. This preparation of training and conditioning helped to educate me for future riding. I learned about the hard knocks of tendon rehabilitation, nutrition and what ulcers were all about, before they had any research on ulcers in sport horses.

I found a couple of mares that had been given up on as trail horses and were destined for the broodmare shed at young ages. I decided that they were too nice to just stand around and decided to re-condition them for endurance riding. I have had success with tendon healing (Pico Stardust) and rehabilitating a fractured coffin bone (Libretto Pico). Pico Stardust +/ has over 1,000 endurance miles. She can still win a 50-mile endurance race at the age of 17. They have both competed at 14 & 15; with top ten finishes and best condition awards.

With owning horses that have hoof problems, such as; weak walls or fractures, I began using the easyboot in place of steel shoes. I learned the proper use of easyboots for both competition and treatment. I gave demonstrations on how to use the easyboot, measure the hoof for correct fit, discussed how long they hold up and how to apply easyboot glue for hard long rocky rides. This also led to using alternative types of shoes, like equiflex shoes. The Equiflex shoe reduces reverberation of concussion back up through the hoof, which allows horses to travel without pain. Once I started competing at higher mileages with the same horses, I also noticed that our horse’s backs were becoming sore. I started some in-depth research with different saddle & saddle tree makers about the trees that would best fit most endurance horses, that have ever changing physique’s and backs.
I invite all that would like to learn from my life experiences with horses to come out to the gorgeous Canyonlands of Moab. Here we can ride in the beautiful red rock desert, or the La Sal Mountains to learn to get in touch with our wonderful playful horses, to compete or complete any endurance ride/race from 25 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles and any combination of multi-day distances. Or just ride for the fun of it across the red desert into our blazing beautiful sunsets.