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Re: [RC] Horse "holiday" - rides2farThe Novice horse, down under, has a controlled speed. At some of their rides they have a Pacer, a seasoned endurance rider, who leads the group of new riders at a pre-determined speed. I truely hate to get caught up in any group larger than 3 on the trail. It gets much harder to see that everyone gets to drink, and it's best for the first horse to wait till the last in the group gets down the tricky hill, or over the tricky creek crossing, etc before they pick up their pace, etc. It's just cumbersome. I think the best start would be to hook up an individual rider with a conservative completer type person. There's the answer to the "mentor" program for new riders some have been suggesting on this site. A really good Pacer/Mentor leading the Novices down the trail for 50 miles is a wonderful idea. On the surface maybe, but I can't imagine one "pacer" who would be the ideal pace for future world beaters *and* overweight, inappropriately built horses. When my daughter did her first ride we matched her horse with a horse he paced well with. The slowest horse was not the best choice. It's hard on your body to ride a horse a long way having to stop & start because others in the pack are not his speed. If they gave us a maximum speed slower than our horse's optimum speed we'd just spend time grazing, then let them go the pace that's comfortable for them. We have so many people that I bet would love to do this. Joe Schoech, down here in the Southeast, would be my first pick. Sure...volunteer somebody else. Poor Joe. He can't help it if he's so nice....makes him way too easy to take advantage of. He's got a good horse and he's a competitive guy who is in the points race. Granted, he picked up my daughter's sponsorship for me twice this year, but if I'd ever felt she would slow him down I'd have never asked him...and if she'd held him back in the vet checks I'd have switched sponsors. His horse is way too good to set a "maximum" speed pace. At a Florida ride last month the ride manager let me give the newbie talk. The words just started flowing. The first thing I told them was, "you must put your horse ahead of anything else you want to do with this sport. Sounds like you'd make a good pacer for them. There's your job. Personally, I like any idea that improves the information the rider has to weigh as to how his horse is faring. I think the riders are the first line of defense, and the more information we can get to the riders the better off we'll be. Yes, I see horses over ridden by a few beginners...but it seems the really serious cases are often the freak breakdowns happening to good riders on good horses, who would have reacted properly if they'd detected the problem in time. I'm interested in any proposal that improves the quality of information the rider has to weigh. I'm not into the idea of automatic sanctions unless a person is a repeat offender. As to log books...have a look at the FEI passport. I like it. It has a clear description of the horse...complete with a zillion whirls impossible to fake, and a page to keep up with innoculations & places to record competitions. I'm big on collecting data and wouldn't mind another place to record it. That's more info. Angie ________________________________________________________________ The best thing to hit the internet in years - Juno SpeedBand! Surf the web up to FIVE TIMES FASTER! Only $14.95/ month - visit www.juno.com to sign up today! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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