What on earth is wrong with riding for its own sake?
Do you believe that only people who compete work hard at perfecting their
riding skills?
Is *that* a good thing to teach a kid--that being good
at something for the
pure joy of it doesn't count, unless they can enter a
competition?
One does not have to be training for some specific end in
order to
thoroughly enjoy an activity and be devoted to it.
Or for
that matter, playing games of various sorts with one's friends
*without*
some damned organized league and point standings and all that rot?
Whatever happened to just being a kid?
--CMNewell
Riding endurance brings out the kid in me... I love to ride
endurance (though haven't this year, unfortunately) and while I ride a
top-ten caliber horse, it's not about competing at all.... I've
reached lunch in 8th place and goofed off for 90 minutes.
So, maybe children riding endurance isn't about competing...
maybe kids do it because they love it, and love it because it's
about adventure and challenge, riding new trails, getting to travel
and camp with their horse and family, enjoying membership in a
nomadic band of folks...
Perhaps it's having non-stop attention from an adult they
respect or admire for however long they're in the saddle...
I use to love to watch
Maryben ride in to a vet check with a train of kids... THAT is one of my first
endurance memories, those kids looking so satisfied with who and where they
were... endurance impressed me because it was so
inclusive.
Seeing Maryben and those 5
kids... that's when I realized I could be a kid again, if only for 50 or
100 miles... years later, Julie Suhr reminded to be a kid when we had a
spontaneous dash for 8th place at a ride two years ago... not many kids can
out-whoop Julie Suhr, or go flying out of sight so
unexpectedly!
Maybe it's all about being
kid-like, no matter how old we are. My friend Steve from Monterey dresses in
tights befitting a jester, even though he left his 40's behind a bush on some
long forgotten trail. Trilby abandons age time and time again, along with
so many others.
Kids love attention, they
love opportunities to glow, to be seen as competent and worthy.... to be
accepted as a peer, at least on some level. And to laugh, explore, relax...sit
around camp fires and...
Don't be so much of an
adult that you forget how much FUN endurance is. It's a hell of a lot of
fun.
Who
knows why these kids ride... they're individuals and all have their own reasons.
I seriously doubt, though, that they ride endurance because either they or their
parents cherish competition.
Maybe they do it for the adventure and sheer joy of it. That's the reason
I do it.
Kids
are people too. Small ones, with less experience.... but a great sense of
adventure.
Linda Cowles
Horse 'N
Hound
New,
Consigned & Used Tack
9155 North State St., Redwood Valley, CA 95470
EASY access with Hwy 101
frontage!
Store:
707-485-0347
Fax: 707-485-4053
