Is endurance as practiced at a ride such as Old Dominion or Tevis the same sport as the WEC endurance ride held yesterday. I don't think they come even close to being the same sport. They require horses do totally different things. It's kinda like the difference between a cross country runner running up and down mountains, through streams, over logs and asking him/her to be competitive with the top ten finishers at the New York Marathon. Different muscles, different stategies. The occasional cc runner will finish in the top ten at the NYM, but most won't. So why are we surprised? Even more, why are so many of you so angry about it?
Yesterdays ride was really just a 100 mile flat track race. If the "Americans" really want to compete at that type of race, then build a 50 or 60 km flat track on a desert, hire some grooms to condition the horses between flat track endurance races and then turn the horses over to the chosen riders the month or the week before the race and have them go for it. Just don't use AERC money to do it and leave "to finish is to win" alone.
Cathy, finding both enjoyable but preferring Tevis
