Charlene “Charly” Dugan and Southern Justice (Roo) in a CEI Young Rider 2* at Broxton Bridge in South Carolina, a qualifier for the World Championship squad. / Becky Kirchner Pearman photo
Charlene “Charly” Dugan is a busy teenager. Let’s start with horses. The sixteen-year-old is a foxhunter and endurance rider. She and her mom, Sally Jellison, own and train field hunters and endurance horses at their farms in Pennsylvania and Florida. They hunt primarily with the Rose Tree Blue Mountain Hunt (PA) and the Live Oak Hounds (FL).
In the world of endurance riding, Charly is one of three young riders chosen by the U.S. Endurance Team to represent this country in the 2021 FEI Endurance World Championship for young riders and juniors. The seventy-five-mile competition is scheduled to be held this year on September 9 in Ermelo, the Netherlands, and will host top young riders from around the globe.
Charly and Roo with her mother, Sally Jellison, riding Gold n Charm, competing at her second qualification ride at Broxton Bridge. / Becky Kirchner Pearman photo
Charly will be competing Southern Justice (“Roo”) in the World Championships, a horse her mother bought for her two years ago as an endurance prospect. Roo was an Arab drafted from the show world, where he was not entirely successful. With Charly, he had to learn a whole new skill set.
Previously, Charly had been racing on Cognac Amberfyre (Farley), a horse leased from Canadian endurance rider Dessia Miller. Charly’s improvements were dramatic, and it became clear it was time for her to move on and acquire her own horse.
Before Farley, Charly had dabbled in lower-level endurance racing on her Thoroughbred hunt horse, Lady Jane, but quickly decided she needed an Arab, the most popular breed for the endurance discipline. This trajectory ended in the family soon owning multiple Arab endurance prospects as well as multiple field hunters. The family farms were becoming quite busy!
Though Roo wasn’t specifically bred for endurance, as are so many of the competitive endurance horses, he happily took to the trails under Charly. Sally explained, “Endurance riding is a natural pursuit for the Arab breed; they come with endurance in their genes.”
But Roo came with his own challenges. Having started life in the Kentucky show rings, he had a history of being frightened by everything he associated with those rings. Though high-strung and reactive, Roo has thrived under Charly’s tutelage and seems to have found his niche. “He doesn’t spook to be mean,” Charly is quick to say. “He just gets scared.”
I had to point out that there are just so many strange things to be found in a show ring that will frighten a horse, but on the trail the surprises can be endless. Charly and Sally agreed.
“Roo is spooky, but trust is a big factor,” said Sally. “And over the last two years, Charly and Roo have bonded and formed a trusting relationship.”
“He will do anything for me,” Charly agreed.
Charly and Lady Jane compete at a hunter pace event for the Rose Tree-Blue Mountain Hounds. / William Manning photo
Charly’s current hunt horse, Lady Jane, is the same Thoroughbred upon which she began her entry-level endurance racing. Lady was a rescue―abandoned, neglected, underweight, with bad feet and ulcers. Charly spent months getting Lady back to health, and was soon riding her, hunting, and finally competing her in endurance. Rehabilitating Lady and keeping her sound was a valuable education for Charly, and she attributes much of her success in endurance to that early experience.
“That really taught me to listen to cues from Roo and other horses while riding and have concern for my horse’s well-being,” said Charly.
“Starting on a non-Arab taught Charly a lot,” Sally agreed.
The other two combinations on the team of young riders are Alex Shampoe from Colorado Springs, who will ride Fine Cut Gold, and Meghan Wert from Spring Mills, Pennsylvania, riding Dude Free Gold. Both Alex’s and Meghan’s horses were bred by Valerie Kanavy, a three-time World Endurance Championship medalist―two golds and a silver. All three young U.S. team members and their mounts are now training for the World Championships at Kanavy’s breeding and training farm in Fort Valley, Virginia.
Endurance races typically range from twenty-five to one hundred miles. The world championship ride in Holland will be over a seventy-mile trail. For those unfamiliar with endurance competition, during the ride, vet checks are located at intervals where competitors must stop as the horse receives a rigorous examination of vitals, soundness, and other tests. Depending on the test results, a horse may be prevented from continuing the race or held at the vet check until recovery to levels deemed safe to continue. The riders who are sent on with no delay are those who are tuned into their mount, asking only as much as the horse can give with its history and its level of training. The horse and rider who cross the finish first and successfully pass the final veterinary exam are the winners. Endurance riding is as much a mental game for the rider as it is a physical one for both horse and rider.
I asked if it gets boring during a long ride of fourteen or more hours. “No!” said Sally. “You can’t fall asleep on the kind of horses we ride. If you get distracted and let your mind wander, bad things happen. You have to actively ride the entire time.”
Charly’s first hundred-mile ride was in August of last year. She joined her mother in the Big Horn 100, a one-hundred-mile ride in the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming. They rode horses specially trained for mountain trails. About forty miles of the trail were ridden in the dark at altitudes of 13,000 feet with steep drop-offs. Between dehydration, fatigue, and the altitude, both Sally and Charly struggled but never considered quitting. Charly was especially dehydrated and was experiencing nose bleeds and hallucinations. Sally kept asking if she wanted to quit, but Charly never thought of quitting. Of course, when you’re on a mountain top in the dark, just how does one quit?
Doesn’t matter as far as Charly is concerned. “I’m not a quitter,” she said forcefully. She describes herself as a stubborn person. Says her muscles were fine. Sally says she was very proud of her daughter for her bravery and determination. Mother and daughter finished the ride in a little over twenty-four hours.
A couple of months later, in October 2020, Charlie entered and won the 75-mile Junior/Young Rider Division of the Fair Hill International in Monkton, Maryland. Mom Sally crossed the finish line two minutes later.
If Charly has the drive to finish whatever she starts, we know where that comes from. Sally, an ex-naval aviation intelligence expert, is also a veteran of the 1,000-kilometer Mongol Derby. According to the Guinness Book of Records, that is the world’s longest and toughest horse race. Annually, about fifty men and women from around the horse world gathered to race against each other over one thousand kilometers (621 miles) across Mongolia on semi-wild Mongolian ponies. At each station, riders pick their next pony and go. The race attempts to retrace Genghis Kahn’s thirteenth-century messaging route across the country.
Competitors in the Mongol Derby change horses twenty-eight times, over about seven days, giving each of them twenty-eight additional opportunities to be bucked off as their fresh horses leap forward in a mad gallop as soon as the rider hits the saddle. Sally likens the Mongolian ponies to ballistic missiles.
I asked Charly if foxhunting helped her endurance riding skills in any way. “Absolutely,” she replied. “Hunting definitely made me a better rider. The two are similar except for speed. Endurance riding and hunting are complementary. In endurance riding, you have to pace yourself; in hunting, you learn to keep your seat while keeping up with hounds.
“Endurance riding and hunting support the same skill set,” added Sally. “You have to stay aware and ride your horse to the terrain in front of you.”
Over the years, Sally has hunted with numerous hunts in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida. From their home farm in Northumberland County, PA, Charly and Sally have been hunting with Sean Cully’s Rose Tree-Blue Mountain Hunt, and in Florida, Marty and Daphne Wood have reached out most kindly and continue to show them good sport with their beautiful pack, the Live Oak Hounds.
I (and the readers of Foxhunting Life) understand the thrill of foxhunting. I asked Charly to explain to me the thrill…the highs…of endurance riding.
“I love how it feels to be happy with my horse,” she said. “When I’ve met the challenge of keeping the horse sound and comfortable throughout the ride and being sent on with no delays at the vet checks…that’s an adrenalin rush.”
Charly is a rising Junior at Warrior Run High School in Pennsylvania. You might think that being a top-ranked endurance rider nationally, foxhunting when not competing, and schoolwork might be enough. But no. Charly is a varsity field hockey player for her high school team, practices at home with stick and ball, and is a member of the high school cheerleader squad. In her spare time, Charly plays the flute.
Posted July 19, 2021