Voltrack
14 April 1996
Arabian Purebred
Father: Drug (Prizrak x Karinka by Aswan)
Mother: Vesna (By Aswan)
Voltrack is a Tersk Arabian. He was bred in The Netherlands out of two real Tersk Arabians. Tersk Arabians are Russian Arabians, from the Tersk stud in Piatygorsk.
We've had Voltrack since he was almost 4. We made almost
immediately an
appointment to have him castrated, because he was really wild and dangerous. He was an
ex-racehorse. He was drawn back because he was not fast enough. And we were not
really experienced with stallions. So it was a good plan to castrate
him.
Now he is a little baby, so sweet and so easy going! He is a little bit arrogant, but
he has the right to be so. Because he have walked more than thousand competition kilometers
and he is NEVER taken out commanded by the veterinarians. For his total competition
record: Click here
Voltrack is a purebred Arabian, we wanted a good endurance horse. But purebreds were normally not very tall, Voltrack was already 1.60 meter and still growing. they have, in comparison to other breeds, bigger lung volume.
Voltrack's good moves, the white on his legs is some clay, for
cooling after heavy work.
Voltrack was a big bully, you couldn't do much with him. He broke out of the
paddock after we had him two weeks, the other horses had never even tried to open
the gate!
My father fallen oft him, and hit the gate. After half a year it went much
better. Laudine dressaged him. And we took him to a Endurance competition,
not to ride but to teach him how to deal with the veterinarian checks. Our, at
the time
4 year old, time bomb, behaved really well.
That year he rode in the lowest grade, grade I (up to 40 km). The year after that, when he was 5 years old, he also rode some grade II (up to 80km) competitions. He learned fast and he understood the competitions really well. He also became to like it. His heart rates were getting lower, slowly he went to get a steady state. (That's a tempo that you can walk for a long time, for everybody its different, he wanted to canter.) In that year (2001) I rode my first competition, I was eleven years old then.
I was extremely nervous, the competition was
on the beach, at Katwijk. The
competitions before that I always groomed my father and sister (Laudine), that's really
important, because Endurance is a real
team sport. Now it was my
turn to ride a competition with my father. We started well, the horses walked
good and it was nice weather.
My competition shirt was a little too big. You have to wear one if you
participate the competition, your starting number is on it. That was a little
bit irritating.
At the checkpoint (a place in the middle of a grade I competition) they rate
your horses heart rate and breathing. Voltrack had a very good heart rate,
very low. Finally we finished fifth.
The next (competition) season I have started
more competitions
with Voltrack. Two times grade I and after that I could start grade II with
Voltrack. So my father and I would ride a grade II competition... In the middle
of that competition in the vetgate Hercules, my father's horse, was lame
with his right hind leg. Because I was not allowed to ride alone and there were
no other riders who couldn't or wanted to take me with them, I had to
stop as well...
We discovered that Hercules had something very bad with his leg that couldn't
heal, so thirteen days after the competition (June 7 2003) we brought Hercules
away. Hercules was 13 years and one month old.
In August I could ride a grade II competition in accompaniment of a couple of other riders. I rode 54 km, but we took a wrong turn. So we nearly rode 10km extra. But we rode the last track very fast to finish in time. We did, so I finished my first grade II competition!
Voltrack is a very experienced endurance horse. He always has very low hart rates and he doesn't think the competitions are exciting. It's just some nice game, a ride with a lot of horses.
In the season of 2003 Voltrack rode with Patent, the new
horse that we bought to replace of Hercules. First we qualified Patent for grade
III . We rode one grade I, to quick-promote Patent to grade II. Then we rode three
grade II competitions. In September we would ride our first grade III... But
Patent had stumbled and was lame. So Voltrack had to go alone with my father. I
groomed with my mother and Laudine stayed behind with Patent at home. Voltrack walked almost the whole competition together
with another horse. But 5 km before the finish that horse was too tired to canter
together with Voltrack, my father saw after one kilometer or so that the horse
wasn't behind him anymore.
Voltrack finished on the 7th place, very well done!
The season of 2004 was really Voltrack's season. I
started with him in March in Kootwijkerbroek 70 km. We finished well.
My father
rode 4 April in Austerlitz 52 km with him.
And then Voltrack became unique. On 17 April 2004 Voltrack reached the 1000 well
finished Competition kilometers and he is, untill today, never taken out of the
competition on command of a veterinarian. He had to stop twice, one because of
Hercules and the other because we doubted about Patent's health. (more info:
http://voltrack.fuld.net)
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