Ridecamp: Re: [RC] musings re "the good old days"

> I do, too, and I honestly don't have any empirical info about what an
> average times was for an average 50 or 100.  It's just my own perception
> that times seem to be getting faster and faster on average----or maybe
it's
> that faster and faster times are being *attempted* by people in their
first
> season, which is a lot more alarming (to me, anyway).

Yes, I do think there may be more unprepared horses trying to run faster.
Our "old days" horses were more apt to have some sort of base from other
disciplines (many had been ranch horses for years, or some other active
endeavor) than what I see starting out today.

> Okay...but I also still have an old book around here somewhere from a well
> known rider that advises horses will run better "empty" during a fifty
than
> as you describe.  And I also know straight alfalfa was a lot more common
> then---one of the nicest things I've read all this week was that someone
at
> Wine Country (I think) had some mild metabolic symptoms, and the ride vets
> told the rider to get him OFF ALFALFA.

Well, I'd almost bet money that I can tell you who that rider/author is....
<g>  Or at least I know we had one preaching that, extrapolating from track
racing and human short distance stuff.  Most of us let it go in one ear and
out the other.  As to the alfalfa--depends where you lived.  Didn't see it
as a regular diet in our area--just as a supplement.  People fed what was
easiest to buy, so CA people certainly fed alfalfa--did take awhile to learn
what the problem was there.  And we always wondered why their horses had
problems that ours didn't, and kinda figured it out intuitively, without
understanding the science behind it yet.

> I guess the point I'm trying to make is that new formulations and feeds
will
> never replace reading your horse and good horsemanship.  I just don't
think
> we should throw the baby out with the bathwater, either, and not take
> advantage of New Stuff just because it's new.  I think the horses deserve
> better than that.

And I don't think any of us are suggesting otherwise.  But when riders post
wondering about preloading with e-lytes for a 15 mile trail ride done in two
halves at an average speed of 3 mph, methinks the technology has become the
focus rather than the horsemanship.  (Not that poster's fault, and I don't
mean to single anyone out--but that post was very typical of the questions
we get from new folks, who figure they need to start right out with a bucket
of "Miracle Win" and a HRM and a bunch of other stuff, when in fact they
need to start out listening to their horse, and learning to understand their
horse, and adding that stuff carefully as they go along.  The pendulum has
swung, and the old-timers are just reminding folks that there is a middle
ground.

Heidi


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