Winning Strategies in "endurance" (was: Tevis - Slower Riders)

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net


Tom Ivers said:

> Well, I've laid hands on a couple of decent endurance horses. Done some
> limited, but telling, field research with them. Managed to set a world
> record for 100 miles (about 7 1/2 hours). And I know just enough about
> exercise physiology to be dangerous. 
> 
> What my limited knowledge tells me, at this point, is than an endurance
> athlete working at near peak performance in an extended endurance race
> requires extended recovery time afterward. I've seen the results of taking
> top equine endurance athletes (and I mean the very top athletes) and
> banging them into every race available--you dig a deep, deep hole that,
> eventually, they can't climb out of. 
> 
> Tevis, being one of the most prestigious endurance competitions in the US,
> should be a "targeted" race--that is, of three or four important races in a
> season, this one should be carefully prepared for. Just as the World is
> being carefully prepared for by a few international riders. 

This is where one of those fundamental differences in motivation comes in to 
play.  If your goal is to  set world records, win world championships or 
“target” Tevis, your training, riding, and scheduling strategies are going to 
be quite different from those that you would employ if you goal is to win the 
1,000 to 2,000 mile “races” that are honored by the AERC year-end awards.

If your goal is thousands of miles of completion and/or top ten finishes (to 
get bonus points) then Tevis is no more a “target” than any other 100 mile 
ride, since the miles and bonus points are the same as for other rides (in 
fact, probably less so, because the competition both against other riders and 
against the trail is so much stiffer).

And if your goal is thousands of miles of completion and/or top ten finishes 
(to get bonus points) then you wouldn’t ask your endurance athlete to work 
“at near peak performance” for any one ride, because to do so “requires 
extended recovery time afterward.”  And if you are going for thousands of 
miles, you need to have a horse that is ready to go again the next day, the 
next week...not in the next month or so.

So you may go to one “race” day understanding that there may be other people 
there who are there for different reasons (e.g. to win on the day), and to 
understand that those people are not your competition, and they may be going 
to run their horse at near its peak, where as for you it is just one leg in a 
much longer race.  The fact that there are many people there with different 
goals and motivations makes the strategizing trickier (if for no other reason 
than it is not obvious who your competition is, and you competition may 
actually be at a different ride than you are).

To make this more understandable, I will give an example from flat racing.  
Quarter Horses are asked to run the first quarter mile of their races in 19-
20 seconds (since that quarter of a mile is all they are going), while 
runners in the Kentucky Derby (even if they could) would never be asked to 
run the first quarter of a mile (or any other fraction) in that time, since 
there would be no horse left for the rest of the race.

Where endurance is different is that the Quarter Horses and the Derby horses 
are on the same “track” at the same time.  

So if my goal is to win the 1000 to 2000 mile race that goes on in my region 
every year, not only CAN I “race” my horse more often than once every 5-6 
weeks (the recovery time Tom recommends?), but I almost HAVE to do it 
(although it is possible to have a strategy that includes racing faster in 
100 milers less often which will still get you to the top of the points 
standings by year end—although, so far, in the PS region this strategy has 
never been done).

I would no more ask my horse to go 100 miles in 7 1/2 hours (even if it 
could) than I would go to the moon, because my horse would need too long to 
recover from that effort in time for the next ride I wanted to do.  Instead, 
I “race” my horse at what would be considered a sub-maximal speed, if the 
race were indeed only 100 miles long, but for me the race is 1000 miles not 
100 miles...so I’m gonna ride just a little bit differently.  And I am not 
(really) going to “target” any one particular ride, but rather am going to 
realize that each day is just one leg of a much longer race, and ride 
accordingly.

So when somebody tells Tammy that her strategy is all wrong and she is over 
riding her horse, her response is, “What do you mean my strategy is all 
wrong, for the past two years we have been winning with this strategy?!”

And Tom responds, “I’ve been winning with my strategy too; and my experience 
is that your strategy doesn’t work.”  Not realizing that they are talking 
about completely different kinds of races.  Of course different kinds of 
races would have different successful strategies.

And when Tammy suggested that Tom come do some research on her kind of 
winning horse (a horse that goes 1500 miles in a year), it seemed fairly 
obvious that Tom misunderstood when he talked about his experience with a 
winning horse (a horse that went 100 miles in 7 1/2 hours).  The problem is 
we aren’t all defining “endurance” in the same way.

So when Tom says, “I've seen the results of taking top equine endurance 
athletes (and I mean the very top athletes) and banging them into every race 
available--you dig a deep, deep hole that, eventually, they can't climb out 
of.”  He is generally right, if he defines endurance as a 50 to 100 mile race 
that defines winning by crossing the finish line first.  

But many people define endurance differently; and both Tammy and Charlie 
Robinson and Karen Chaton (and Trilby Pederson even crossing the finish line 
dead last) have been very successful with their top equine endurance athletes 
by “banging them into every race available” without digging a deep hole at 
all, but rather coming back with a horse that is stronger yet.

It is possible, in both types of race, to burn up horses along the way 
through ignorance, mismanagement, or bad luck; and both types of competition 
are testing the limits of what horses can do (albeit in different ways). 
There are some aspects of the competition and the management of these horses 
that are similar, but there are some that are quite different, not the least 
of them being a) how fast you ask the horse to go and b) how often you ask 
the horse to do it.  And frequently it is striking the right balance between 
these that makes a winning strategy.

kat
Orange County, Calif.