Re: RC: Show and Tell

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated Sat, 4 Aug 2001 10:46:09 AM Eastern Daylight Time, "Howard Bramhall" <hwb67@msn.com> writes:

> Kathy:  Your experience as a volunteer is a great idea, but please don't discount having a first time rider doing a 25, as opposed to a 50, for their first ride. Especially if this is the horse's first ride.  Even if you train really well, before the endurance ride, you just never know how your horse is going to act at their first ride. I've done it with three different horses that I own and each time, they turn into a creature I hardly recognize.  The horse's adrenaline is flowing like a wild creek when they get to a ride and see a hundred or more strange horses all camped next to them. And when you mount up for the start of the run, that calm mare or gelding suddenly has turned into a wild stallion ready to mate.  My point is, the 25 is safer for the horse. 

I'm not sure if I buy that, Howard.  Granted, I'm no longer a novice rider, but I DEFINITELY prefer to have my youngsters start right out on 50's, and discover from the very beginning that this is a LOOONG ride, and therefore they are going to have to think.  And a lot of the problems you mention don't exist with horses that have experience at group events other than endurance rides.  Getting used to camping in a crowd and keeping one's head and manners is part of the training for endurance that far too many people overlook.

My first endurance ride was a 100-miler.  (But then that was back in the Dark Ages before rides offered multiple distances on the same weekend.)  But--my horse was EXTREMELY fit (riding range in the central Idaho mountains on an almost daily basis in the summers for three years), I had ridden a great deal and was likewise very fit, and my horse had had to perform in public on numerous occasions--everything from local horse shows to parading with drill teams in the Snake River Stampede parades.  He was pretty unflappable, and the first endurance ride was just one more camp-out and one more thing.  I do think that LD is a great place to start for a great many people (probably MOST people), but for the experienced rider with a reasonably fit horse (and yes, experience with horses CAN be gleaned from coaching and from other disciplines, as well as from endurance miles), it can be an unnecessary step.

Heidi