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RE: RC: Long Slow Distance

Title: RE: RC: Long Slow Distance

Well, it IS Long, Slow Distance.   The reasoning being is that the horse is not being raced and learns not to race.  It is too easy for an inexperienced horse and rider team to do a fast 25 miler and never learn to pace themselves.

Doing a multi-day is a totally different experience than doing single day 50s.  Beau Joust really learned to take better care of himself on this ride than he had in all the other 50’s that we did previously.  He ate better and drank better than he ever did before when the adrenaline rush of doing a one day ride would short circuit his hunger and thirst mechanisms.   He finished stronger than he ever was on any single day fifty.  We top 10’d the last two days of the ride, after he ate and drank like a pig all week, and was even stronger the last day than the day before.

I don’t think I would do this on an inexperienced horse, either.   If Beau hadn’t gotten his hoof crack issue resolved, I would have brought Drako just to camp out and maybe do one LD after a lot of riding around camp.  But I’m a relative newbie to the sport, too.

This guy comes across as having a lot of experience with young horses and multi-days.  It wasn’t his first choice, he had lost his horse a couple of months ago due to a pen mates kick breaking his good horse’s leg.  Judging by the results, he knows what he is doing. He was going vet check to vet check, playing it day by day and watching the horses condition all along and would have called it quits at any sign of distress.  He wasn’t proud of himself, he was proud of his horse and appreciated the young horse’s efforts.  I myself admire his patience for those long 12 hour days coming into camp in the dark on foot and having the cojones to do something like that against conventional wisdom.   Don’t be judgmental without seeing the whole picture.  This guy was not doing it out of ego.

I wouldn’t offer anyone with that many miles of experience any advice.  What kind of advice would this relative newbie give him?

K.





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