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[RC] 100's parts 1 and 2 - Sisu West RanchOn the contrary I found these posts to be two of the best and helpful you have ever posted. They are free of inflammatory language, and make sense in relation to my limited experience and reading in the areas of exercise and conditioning. You also carefully specified what the goal of the conditioning was.The first lesson I took home is that I and most likely greater than 2/3 rds majority of AERC members can not set up a program that will put them on the track for world class level competition.. I think that is OK with most of us, our problem is to look at your program and see how we can modify it to be able to safely compete at whatever level we can. The next few paragraphs will outline some of the limitations and constraints common to AERC members that prevent them from following your program. 1. Selection of horses. Wendy and I can afford only 7 horses, there is no way we could purchase, steal, or breed a large number to be used as a basis of selection. Your point of cutting losses ASAP is very valid. One of my endurance prospects is now happily employed as a riding horse in the Wind River Range of WY, another was a 4H horse the last time I had word about her. Many AERC endurance riders are under even more severe financial constraints than we are, they have a real problem if a horse does not work out. Also the emotional attachment and bond to their horse is much more important to average riders than it is to those driven to win the world cup. Right now 1/7 th of our limited budget is devoted to feeding and caring for Raj. He is 22 and while healthy, will never do another endurance ride again. Wendy will never part with him. By my way of thinking, there is also no reason that she should. 2. Training trails. For my first 30 years I lived in WI. There were only two hills (and they were short) that I could use for training. I would have loved to move to MT, but the only way I had to pay the bills required that I live where I did. Living in WI also meant that from Nov. to April, most trails were closed by the state to allow cross country skiers a chance to have fun. The compacted snow and ice on the rest of the trails were less than ideal for conditioning. Below zero F temperatures were no picnic either. 3. Consistancey of training. My employment required that sometimes I had to leave town for a few days to a week. There was nobody to exercise the horses when I was gone. Since I had children there were also nights where their needs had to take precedence over the training of endurance horses. In the dead of winter I left for work before sunrise, and usually arrived home after sunset. I did do some training in the dark on the roads, but you need a special and quite experienced horse for that. Actually, even now there are some constraints. During the early part of July I had to put up hay. The mower and baler broke. After fighting those problems and throwing bales I just did not have the energy to ride my horse. 4. Specificity of training. If you live in WI, even if you have the luxury of not working 40+ hours a week, you can not train either on the desert, or in the mountains. Of course, if you live in the desert you can't train in the humidity common eastern or south eastern rides. 5. Desire to win. The top athletes in the world will do whatever is required to win. While I enjoy competing, I do not have that desire. I should loose weight, and go back into training, but I don't want to win that much. I don't think that I am alone. Ed
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