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Re: [RC] LD vs Endurance... can't we all get along? - heidiLet me try: In Brasil there are another discussion. Here, limited distance/category is a ride where a rider has a time to do it. We call Velocidade Limitada = limited speed. They are short rides: 27km, 35km, 50 km. Brazilian riders use these rides to training his horses, to know about Endurance and to initiate in Endurance. After a time, they run in Limited Distances: 50km, 60km, 74km. This is very similar to what we call Competitive Trail Riding (CTR). And as others have mentioned, a CTR format is a very good learning format. There is a mininum time limit as well as the maximum time limit, so racing is not the key factor. This is very much like what Ed described about the UMECRA group. I might add (since the FEI structure has been mentioned relative to this discussion in the past but has not been pursued) that according to my husband, who came up through the Danish endurance system and the whole FEI scene, the equivalents to our LD rides in at least Denmark (and I think in other areas of Europe as well, although I am not clear on that point--perhaps one of our European list members can comment) also have minimum time limits, so racing is not a factor at all there, either. The focus there is also much more on the rides being a learning or training format for the longer distances, and although they may have riders who never go further, the concept of the "career LDer" who wants to race just isn't an issue there. During the inception of the LD program here, there was a great deal of discussion about putting minimum time limits on LDs, but the concept was discarded for various reasons--among them being variations in terrain, the ready availability of CTR in many areas for people who wish to participate in that sort of a format, and the consideration that it was not felt that this was what our riders wanted. At any rate, I think it is wholesome to look at how other countries have dealt with the same issue--and I think the minimum time limit is perhaps one of the most common ways of "keeping the lid on" and solving the problem of simply not having enough mileage or time to be able to sort the horses out by veterinary parameters while on the course in rides of shorter distances. Heidi ============================================================ Many of the endurance riders in our top echelons of competition, now and in the past, exemplify the 'common man' not the hierocracy. It is this possibility, this chance to come to the fore, that makes endurance competition of the Aussie/American type so much more desirable to part of the world. ~ Bob Morris ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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