when distance riding started in earnest in the 70s, we rode in
jeans (ouch) and cowboy boots. Tennies were a no-no!! No elytes,
gobs of pads under the saddle - no such thing as an endurance or 'trail' saddle.
and the name of the game no matter what kind of saddle one used was to lean
forward! Get your weight of the horse's back. It took a couple of
years to quit the leaning forward, we still wore jeans but had graduated to
tennis shoes, but we did wear either long johns, panty hose, or knee braces
under our jeans to protect the knees. Got pretty hot at times! At
least we were smart about watering our horses whenever we found water. I
remember rocking and rolling on all those saddle pads too! One girl
put foam rubber under her pad to prevent saddle sores, the foam rubber
split, so she super glued it. Guess what? when she went to remove
her pads, the pad was glued to the horse's back!! We never took hay to vet
checks but I remember finding all the grass that I could. I also remember
all the sore rubs from wet jeans. I also remember a race off when we did a
2 day 80 mile combination endurance-competitive ride. One was scored on
how fast one did the ride plus how well conditioned the horse was. It was
an interesting concept and fun to play all the mind games and plan the
strategy. At the very end of 80 miles after Charlie spooked at the llamas
hissing at him (he wasn't too tired I guess), we had a run off to the
finish. I don't know how I stopped him because his chin chain broke!
Yes, we won! LOL Jeanie
