The Edge (was: The Wife, the Kid & Me)

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

K S SWIGART   katswig@earthlink.net

About the Far Out Forest Ride Howard said:

> If you've never met Doc Frazier... His words moved me at this ride and I'll
> try and share some of them with you. 
> ...

I will preface everything I am about to say with several disclaimers:

1.	I do not know Dr. Frazier.
2.	I do not know if Howard has accurately reported what Dr. Frazier said.
3.	I do not know if I have understood correctly either what Howard 
reported or what Dr. Frazier meant when he said:

> He then spoke of the horses.  Doc mentioned that we, as endurance riders, 
> push them closer to the edge, closer to their breaking point, more than any 
> other equestrian sport.

But if I take this statement out of its context and attempt to understand it 
as stated above, I can only say that it is a statement with which I cannot 
agree.

For me, endurance is not a sport about pushing horses close to the edge.  In 
fact, I think that to do so is to invite disaster.  For several reasons:

The obvious one of: it's really tough to know just where the edge is, 
especially with the myriad of differing factors that face us at each ride, so 
if I try to operate close to it, I take substantial risk of stepping over it 
inadvertently (and the longer I do this, the greater the risk).  As a result 
endurance is a sport (unlike others where the footing, the venue, and other 
parameters remain much more constant; and where the length of effort is 
measured in seconds or minutes rather than hours, days, or years) where 
pushing horses close to the edge would be foolhardy indeed.  Especially if we 
go out into remote places (which _I_ do) where the consequences of going over 
the edge are much more serious than they would be, say, at Santa Anita.  If I 
am going out to a remote place, I want to be sure that I and my horse have 
plenty of reserves, reserves that I hope and expect that I will never have to 
call upon.

In this respect, it is Quarter Horse and other flat track racing, show 
jumping, barrel racing, etc. that pushes horses right up to the very edge of 
their capabilities.  Endurance horses simply cannot afford to take those 
chances.

But, more importantly, even if we were clairvoyant and knew exactly where the 
edge is at any given moment AND could maintain the vigilance required for 
hours and hours on end to keep ourselves from ever inadvertently going over 
it, operating a mechanism (I use the word mechanism in a broad sense of the 
word here) at the edge of its capabilities for extended periods of time is 
"really hard on the equipment."  So, while I can occasionally, with very 
little damage to the engine, operate my car at 4,000 rpms.  If I do that for 
extended periods of time, I am going to significantly shorten the useful life 
of my car.

If endurance is about having a LONG (that is what the word endurance 
signifies to me) competitive career of a horse, consistently operating it at 
the edge of its capabilities for extended periods of time (i.e. the length of 
a 50 or 100 mile ride) wouldn't be the best way to go about achieving this.

So no, for me, more than any other equestrian sport, endurance riders (if 
they are wise) do not push their horses closer to the edge, closer to their 
breaking points.  If they are wise, they do their best to discover just where 
the edge is...and then stay the hell away from it.

You won't catch me (at least not intentionally) ever pushing my endurance 
horse anywhere near its breaking point.  

And I would like to think that Howard would agree as he said:

> Some of us know this, some of us do not.  It's not 
> until something bad happens when we discover exactly where that edge is 
> located.  As he said this it bought a few tears to my eyes since Dance Line 
> and I had already made a trip down that road. I had taken Dance Line over 
> that edge at an endurance ride just about a year ago. I planned on that 
> never happening again.

Because, if there is one lesson that I would have learned from having 
inadvertently pushed my horse over the edge at an endurance ride, the way I 
would plan for that to never happen again would be to ensure that I never got 
anywhere near it...because, I would think, that the other lesson that people 
could have learned from Howard's experience with Dance Line last year is that 
the vets can't keep a rider from pushing their own horse over the edge.

And if I were a vet at an endurance ride, giving a briefing to rider before 
they were going to head out on a tough ride, _I_ wouldn't be telling 
endurance riders to push their horses close to the edge.  I would say, "We, 
as endurance riders, more than any other competitive sport, are very careful 
to keep our horses as far from the edge as we possibly can."

As I said, I do not know if this IS what Dr. Frazier may have said.
And I do not know if this IS what he may have meant.

kat
Orange County, Calif.