[RC] Year 2020 - The Lampoon of Future Endurance Riding - Ridecamp GuestPlease Reply to: Cyndee Pryor moonshadow@xxxxxxxxxxx or ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================== Year 2020 The Lampoon of Future Endurance Riding By Cyndee Pryor Forget car-pooling. With gas prices at their current rate, and we all know where they are heading - giddy up - we may pine for smidgens of preposterous shifts to our play. Rides would be staged closer to riders and in many more locations where only the locals show up and don't have to travel far. With two to ten riders showing up at many of the rides, things would have to be changed slightly. Instead of the ride manager multi-tasking or wearing multiple hats, he/she would wear one helmet with many different colored feathers. Each feather would signify a certain task. At the ride meeting the feather would be purple for ride manager, at the vet checks the feather would be blue for vet, green/red for in/out timer, yellow for pulse taker, and black for rider as this would be the mood of that person when they were in the saddle. If there were more than one feather in the helmet at any given time, this signifies to everyone else to stay far away. The rider/manager/vet would be referred to as Feather/s in the Helmet and take a one-page, mail-order course on vetting. Nothing major, just enough to know the beast in hand has four legs, non-cloven hooves, no horns or antlers, is larger than a Great Dane, has hair covering most of it?s body, has the potential to move forward, and appears to be breathing. The trails would be different. Granted, the terrain may not be all that desirable. Nor the view. However, cost effectiveness would be the theme. If the trail were very limited, consideration would be given to how many times a horse can go around an arena, rural block, or in someone?s pasture in one direction before changing leads. The riders would be mandated to mark the trail on Friday and pull flags on Sunday. But in reality, the trial would seldom be marked. During the ride meeting with the purple feather, the turns on the course would be duly noted by the fourth dead tree at the top of the hill and the place where the sparrow?s nest was ten years ago. Maps would be non existent as the indigenous would already know the trail, and the newcomers would dutifully pursue someone of local trail experience. Upon arrival at a vet/pulse check, everyone would be required to wear a pulse monitor and show it to the in-out timer/rider/manager/vet. Unless that person was busy. Then they would mark down their own in-time on the clip-board and let themselves out of the hold at the appropriate time according to their own watches. Crews would be required to crew in a general sense of the word. At any given moment, their job could change, their rider could change, or they may have to take the place of Feather/s in the Helmet. Now I?m not apposed to the suggestion made by someone - name unmentioned - about not even bringing our horses. We show up with our rigs minus the horse trailer. On Friday night have a nice pot luck with ride meeting following. As the anticipation mounts, we bring our registration papers for our trusty mounts on Saturday morning to the starting line. Feather/s in the Helmet reviews the pedigrees. If there is any doubt, 8x10 pictures are presented showing the horses? confirmation. Sometime after lunch, again a pot luck, the announcement is made as to who could have made top ten, first, and BC. We give tail end award to the person who has a reputation of leaving their camp site a mess, and most courteous rider to the person who brings the best food to the pot luck. Course with gas prices being what they are, we might have to forgo the above ideas in favor of surrendering to an email-with-attachments club. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|