In winters I ride on Sundays with a group of die-hards. Usually we have 2 to 4 riders each week and ride a fairly moderately paced 15 to 20 miles, depending on weather and footing. Yesterday, it got into the 50's here in New England, absolutely gorgeous day for riding. We had 9 riders. While waiting for the slightly late arrivers some of us went out for a quick 5 mile warm up loop, came back into camp to hook up with the rest of the group. Now here's where the epiphany comes in: I've never done an endurance ride, just CTRs, so have never experienced the mass start you all were talking about not to long ago ('rating your horse at the start 'or something like that). Anyway, the horses were feeling good and off we all went trotting down the trail together. Well, trotting turned to cantering, then to galloping and I can honestly tell you I had no control of my horse for a good 10 minutes. Finally we hit some water which forced a break in the pace. Long story short, we ended
up finishing 12 miles in a breath-taking 75 minutes. Spent most of my energy keeping my horse in a gallop (versus a 'dead gallop') and making sure my head stayed attached to my head. Everyone made it back to camp safe and sound. BTW, we cut the ride short for fear someone would die!
So here's what I learned on this ride: I'm not ready for a mass start-need better control of my horse's brain for that kind of competition. I did manage to rate him back to the end of the group for the last mile ;-) Well, its something! I promise to go back and read all those posts I deleted about rating your horse at the start;-)
PS. For those of you ready to crucify me for being a bad example, PLEASE. My friends and I are excellent riders and horsepeople. We were having fun, our horses were having even more fun and we would never ride like that during a competition;-)
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