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From: Trailritegroupie@xxxxxx
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Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 19:26:19 EDT
Subject: Ethical riders
To: ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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I have been reading all of these e-mails and I don't know who's who and
what's what. All I know is that my actual first ride was the Malibu ride and
I am extremely disappointed with some of the riders that had entered
themselves in the ride. Multitudes of riders were cantering past me without
even giving me the courtesy of informing me of their presence. Not only
that, but I have got the largest gash across the right side of my leg due to
one of the riders actually running into me as they passed with no warning.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't walking my horse at this slow humpty dump pace.
Trust me, my little boy has far too much energy for that and I was at a nice
even paced trot almost the entire ride (and, yes, I completed the ride).
When I acquired an interest in doing this, I started working with someone
that I felt was extremely experienced in the sport (as you can see by me
e-mail address name :-) ) and they taught me how to pace my horse, how to
take care of my horse, and that "to finish is to win "and "the horse comes
first." Once again, as I watched quite a few people running around with this
idea in their head that "to come in first no matter how your horse is doing"
is to win, I could not believe it. No wonder as many people were pulled as
were and thank God for the vets for being there and we would have had serious
problems. I had much higher expectations of endurance riders. This isn't a
short term sport. This is a long term sport and that horse that you are
riding today, you want to be able to ride in 10 years from now and you want
it to be as healthy, if not more so, than the horse next door. Watching what
some people out there are doing to their poor horses makes me feel sad for
not only the horse but the rider because they won't have that horse for long
and if they do have it, they won't be able to ride it.
Every time I tell someone that I have taken up endurance riding, they give me
a sigh like I am personally trying to kill my horse. I try to explain to
them that the sport is all about the horse. I try to also explain to them
that I bet when the day is done, my horse will be much healthier and much
more happy and live much longer than the horse next door that sits in it's
stall the entire week until the owner decides to finally take it out to do
some rodeo event for and hour to two and then sticks it back in it's stall to
wait until the next roping challenge.
After being in this first Malibu ride, I started to wonder whether I should
just keep my mouth shut and assume those sighing people are right when it
comes to some of the riders in the ARC.
Get some training before you start. Knowledge is your most valuable asset
out there and can save you and horse's life if necessary. It can also make
your ride much more enjoyable.
For those of you that have been riding for quite some time now and act the
way that I have expressed above, you need to get some new training under your
belt and fast. I can give you a name and number?
Food for thought! Take it to heart.
Ginger
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