Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

There are many people down here in the swamp - and elsewhere - that feel 
the best training for an endurance horse is CTR's. There are many of the 
top riders on the East coast that bring new horses along using these 
rides and will do a 3 day 100 mile CTR prior to every doing a 100 mile 
endurance ride. Many of the better horses and riders out there come out 
of this tradition.
The issue is not the distance it is the pacing. There is no better way 
to train a horse (and new rider) to do a 6.25 mph pace than a CTR. It 
hammers it into the horse and it hammers it into the rider.

There is nothing wrong with the 25 mile distance. It is the way it is 
used. An LD can be used to provide the same training as a CTR but it 
normally takes an experienced rider to do so. If I were bringing on a 
new horse I'd start out with a couple very slow LD's ( the CTR required 
pace is faster than the 6 hour LD pace - at least in the FL rides ) then 
move up to a couple of CTR's. At that point the horse should be ready to 
go.

Truman

Laney Humphrey wrote:

> As always, Karen's answer is right on.  I think one of the most 
> important things she said was
>
> >  It took him more time to
> >
> > > unlearn the wrong things, than it would have to pick it up right 
> > > from the start.
>
> Horses learn really quickly and they learn the "wrong" just as fast as 
> they learn the "right."  Karen didn't mention how she introduced her 
> horse, Granite Chief +/ (or maybe it's /+!)to endurance.  The two of 
> them mostly walked for an entire year!  Yes, it is possible to finish 
> a 50 in time doing (almost) nothing but walking.  A horse is born 
> knowing how to go fast, it is our responsibility to encourage them to 
> go the pace that is right for their stage of development.  I agree 
> with Karen that speeding through shorter rides is not necessarily the 
> best thing for many horses.  Going slow for a longer distance isn't 
> necessarily always fun but your horse is much more likely to be a 
> Decade Horse and a pleasure to ride for many of those years if it was 
> started long and slow.
> JMHO,
> Laney


--

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. The opposite 
of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."    Niels Bohr 
-- Nobel Laureate, Physics




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