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Re: [RC] Belmont-Smarty Jones - Chris PausYup. I'll bet he's replaying those couple of minutes over and over in his mind.... I did something similar at my last LD ride. I always just ride to finish. A couple of times I've top 10d, but, mostly I just go for completion. On our second and last loop, my horse was feeling great. I like to ride by myself and that usually means behind everyone. But Star really wanted to turn it on going up a hill (stupid I know) I let him have his head and for a couple of minutes we had a blast. He was on fire! His HR was great, he was doing fine. We got quite aways ahead of the others. Then we came to a part of the trail that is really narrow, twisty, windy and hilly. It caught up with us. His HR stayed good, but i could tell his respiration was too high. it was hot and humid. I slowed him waaay down, stopped in every water crossing for drinks and sponging and just piddled coming back in to camp. The others that I had breezed by, passed me. Of course, their horses pulsed down faster than mine, and some of those I had been ahead of top tenned. If I had taken our time and not let him fly when he wanted to, we'd have been right there with them. We got our completion, and my horse was fine, but I kicked myself later. I KNEW better. I am NOT a racer, but as Angie has said at times, that little devil sitting on my shoulder told me to go for it.... Back to my usual game plan for rides..... --- Cowgirgoof@xxxxxxx wrote: Stewart Elliot (Smarty's jockey) should have ridden Samrty like a 100 miler- I knew at the half-way point he was going to blow him out. In each race he won before, he's ridden him at a nice easy second until the top of the stretch. This time he let Smarty pull out front and I knew then he had it blown. He assumed he had more horse than he really did. Should have paced him...Let that be a lesson to our endurance horses. Becky ============================================================ It is how we "feel" deep inside that matters, cause each of us knows the truth, regardless of how we try make it complicated. It just isn't. ~ Frank Solano ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================ ===== "A good horse makes short miles," George Eliot Chris and Star BayRab Acres http://pages.prodigy.net/paus ============================================================ It is how we "feel" deep inside that matters, cause each of us knows the truth, regardless of how we try make it complicated. It just isn't. ~ Frank Solano ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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