asking too much??

["Sandy Bolinger" <bolinger@bigsky.net>]

This is endurance related as I just had a reiner friend inform me that he
thought endurance was asking way too much of a horse.  I was so appalled
that he would say such a thing coming from his equine sport of choice that I
was speechless!  So I've been thinking about it...recalling a recent thread
on ride camp about making a horse trot in circles..and I started thinking
about these reining and cutting horses that are put into full fledged
training as 2 year olds...doing endless circles, stops, turns etc. Not to
mention the two year old thoroughbreds...Seems to me the potential for
permanent damage is greatest in these sports that ask so much of the young
horses...BY FAR! I'm also always amazed at the depth of  knowledge within
the endurance community as a whole...and am equally amazed at the lack of
knowledge in some of the other "disciplines."  When I first started
endurance about 13 years ago, I thought I knew allot about horses...now,
even with everything I've learned in the past few years, I realize  that the
more I learn, the more I find I don't know!...Anyway...I'm just babbling on
here...glad, as always, that this is my sport of choice and not one of the
other ones that are, in every sense of the word, abusive to the horse.