Re: Horses illustrated Article & post from Merryben

[Rightrider@cs.com]

Thank you Merryben (we reward first place and TT).  Like it or not, when you 
do that, it IS a race at least for some of those entered on any given day.  
If we don't want endurance riding to be a race, Alexander MacKay Smith has 
proposed a system that will take all the "race" out of it.  But I don't see a 
mass exodus of endurance riders (AERC members?) trying to get rules changes 
that would implement his suggestions.  
    I would like to see everyone celebrate the sports diversity.  Personally, 
I think its great when someone who wants to ride for milage and someone 
(whose prepared their horse), and enjoys going "zoom, zoom," can ride over 
the same track to the same finish line and succeed each in their own goals.  
I don't think it gets any better than that.  Both riders are enjoying Gods 
country, both riders are enjoying the horse/human partnership, both riders 
are testing themselves and their horses on their own terms and if we keep a 
perspective on "success," realizing that the horse and rider who finishes rid
e after ride, year after year deserves as much respect as the "first place 
horse across the finish line, WE will be the ones to shape endurance, not a 
magazine article's title.   PS, as a professional who works with first time 
LD riders as well as successful international riders, I personally experience 
just as much joy in a job well done by a client whether they are an LD "new 
bee" or a 50 mile completer or a medal winner.  However, from a business 
stand point I can't disregard the fact that others seem to respond more 
favorably to a list of successful medal winning clients, rather than with a 
list of the "had a great time, did a successful ride, had a happy horse and 
fell in love with the sport" riders.  Seems like a bit of a double standard 
if we all want it to be only endurance "riding" doesn't it?   Donna 
Snyder-Smith