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Re: [RC] What's in a name? - Heidi SmithIf I'm not mistaken, early in this sport, all we had was 100 mile rides, and those were endurance rides. Then 50's came along, and "endurance" got expanded to 50's too, even though a 50 isn't anywhere near as hard as a 100 Actually, no. While it did kind of "officially" start with Tevis, it soon evolved into something that had all sorts of odd distances, many of which are what we now call LD rides. There were rides as short as 25, as well as rides with strange lengths like 37 or 43 or whatever they happened to be. The 25s and rides of similar lengths, in the days before "fit to continue" and when they were included in the overall points structure, were the real horse killers--I've seen 25 run as fast as 1:09 (Vale, Oregon, back in the early 70's or so, Jon Sumerlin on a little grey horse he had)--and horses were practically run until they dropped. The shorter distances were dropped out of the points and career mileage structure in an effort to save horses--and it was then that "endurance" was defined as 50 miles and up. Then the concept came about that perhaps shorter distances run more slowly would be good intro rides for novice riders--and the LD concept began to evolve. But it was the damage to horses when LD-distance rides were run full bore for points that caused the change--despite what some would insinuate here, there really were people who cared about treatment rates and horse deaths "back then" and made steps to cause the sport to evolve to something safer and healthier. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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