if your horse responds to your cues in the arena,
or out on a training ride, then hopefully, 90% of the time your horse will
listen to you at an endurance ride. the ride start can be exciting for
horses, 1st ride or 100rthd(?). and then they may not listen to you
at all. if you have a good basic relationship with lots of ground work,
cue work, then you will be safer, to yourself, your horse and all the other
riders and horses.
and not all rides have an uphill start! :),
so you can't count on riding the beans out at the start.
altho i'm not a trainer and only riding
for eight years now, this has been the most important lesson for
me.
so, my advice to you is do your home work with your
horse and you will have a fun time.
Simrat, whatever you do or whatever
you ride in, make sure your horse knows what the word whoa means and that you
do have a stop. When horses get into a competitive situation, they turn
out (not all the time) to be a horse that you didn't know you had!! Have
fun, lots of good people in Oregon to help you out, neighboring states as
well. Jeanie
