Re: LD and BC

[Sue Brown <sbrown@wamedes.com>]

At 03:21 PM 7/5/00 -0400, CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com wrote:
>In a message dated 7/5/00 12:03:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
SandyDSA@aol.com 
>writes:
>
><< << Also, if riders (not the horses) were required to ride X number of LDs
>  (miles) before they could do 50s, there might be more of a chance that they
>  would develop a better concept of pacing and it would give them a chance to
>  learn more about the sport before they leap into the longer distances >>
>  Yes - thoughts? I have thought of this as an option, >>
>
>Sorry, but there ARE a fair number of riders who know what they are doing
and 
>can get through all that prep work at home--and not just the vastly 
>experienced.  Those who are already well-versed in other disciplines and who 
>do their homework can often start out quite safely on 50's.  As one who
did a 
>100 as my first ride, I know I would have been very "turned off" from the 
>sport by such an approach--I had ridden a great many miles checking cows on 
>our cattle range prior to ever taking up distance riding, and had done some 
>CTR's of 35-60 miles (the 60's were 2 days) that were not NATRC and set 5-7 
>mph paces--and quite frankly, found them to be not very challenging, after I 
>turned in my umpteenth "perfect" PR score and near perfect vet score.  We 
>should ADVISE people without a great deal of experience to start with LD's, 
>and how to use them, but keep in mind that not all that start this sport are 
>novices with their first horses!
>
>Heidi
> 

While I have to agree with this to a certain extent, I know that there are
quite a few "experienced" horse people out there (myself included) who had
not done much distance riding before they got interested in endurance...and
didn't really know what all of the aspects of competition was really like.
What 25-30 miles is *really* like, along with the whole concept of vet
checks, camping with your horse, how to ride the trails (read the markings
so you don't get lost ;-)), and so on), can't be realized until it has
actually been done.  Without having done much distance riding in the past
(a great lot of us have emerged from kinda pokey trail riding or
predominantly life in arenas and *certainly* nothing that involved more
than 2 hours at a time in a saddle <g>), what this amount of saddle time
can do to the older human bodies can be significant...so introducing the
human abuse part slowly should be a serious consideration. TIC <g>

Seriously, tho...I agree with the general premise...I just don't think it
would kill people to have to do a couple of LDs before adding the stressors
of the longer distances, both horse and human. <g>  If they feel they're
ready, they can move on up...if not, they can continue with LD until they
feel they're ready (if ever.)  If everybody did it, it wouldn't seem out of
place.  The couple of required LDs (or maybe even just one) would have the
sole purpose of making sure the competitors understood the whole picture
and had received a certain minimum of education before they continued on.
There is a lot to learn and the basics, imo, should be in place before the
longer distances are started.  The additional novice meeting held after the
basic ride meetings would be geared towards making sure that novice
competitors really do start out with a certain level of
education...complete with handouts and educational material reference lists
and where to get what they might look to find what interests them,
including tack and supplies.  While you can't force people to perform
intelligently even if you spoon fed the instructions, a bit more of a
structured introduction would help a lot of novice competitors (both
experienced horsemen and real greenhorns who really *are* interested in
doing the best they can) get a good start.  It would also prevent the
complete ignoramus from jumping into 50s totally unprepared...even tho they
might, (and some times, very egocentrically) think they are.  Just the
teacher in me, I guess. ;-)  
 
Sue
  



sbrown@wamedes.com
Tyee Farm
Marysville, Wa.