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Re: [RC] 50 or 25? - Zephyr Arabians--- Sky Ranch <skyranch@xxxxxxxx> wrote: You know what, though? If I find that my older horse (he's a 16 yr old Arabian) can't do the 50 and stay sound and happy, then I am very happy that maybe we can do 25's! Well, I wouldn't consider a 16 year old Arabian an "older horse" unless he's had a rough life. :) If you've been doing NATRC Novice rides, I bet you'll find that doing any distance AERC ride where you can stretch out and move faster will be easier on you and the horse, but you'll have the option of going slower than NATRC Open rides. My own gut reaction is that with your horse's base & your NATRC experience you can go straight to slow 50s. There really is no rush out there. You can walk-trot and finish a 50, even a hard 50 if you don't mind taking all day to do it (been there, done that). :) FWIW, I have two horses that have done 50s. With one she and I were both newbies to AERC together (I'd done NATRC many years ago), so we started in LDs. After I figured I had the gist of what I needed to know we moved to 50s. With the other horse I started him off straight on 50s after one Novice NATRC ride where he jigged all day long and I thought I was going to kill him. I knew he couldn't do an LD ride without one of us killing the other, and he'd need a 50 to get his brain in gear. I have a couple other horses here that will hopefully be endurance horses as well (I can only ride so many at a time!) and I'll probably start them in 50s as well; I did think about taking a youngster out in LD, but decided to just give her more miles as a pleasure trail horse and start her in endurance later. ~Nicole Zephyr Arabians http://www.zephyrarabians.com KattWmn Web Design http://www.kattwmn.com =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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