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[RC] was drafting, now -- how the heck to start safely! - Beth LeggieriAngie said: I may be one of the guilty people who hooks up though...especially at the start. In order to get my horse out of the "search and destroy" mentality of passing all comers I have a habit of trying to focus him on one horse (preferably with a wide butt that blocks his view of all others) and get him to settle in to travel with it. I guess the people at Million Pines had a one in 86 chance I'd pick them and big ol' Harley got unlucky. >g< However, my motivation is always control, not trying to get someone to pull me down the trail. *** Which leads me to this--- I am in the process of trying to start over, reprogram, redo, improve--whatever you want to call it--our starts. We've been training at a trail riding pace the past few months in an effort to relax the horse's brain. It's been delightful and he's been a joy to ride by himself in non-competitive
situations, but I have no illusions that it will carry over seamlessly to an actual ride. This weekend I plan to do two very slow 15 mile fun rides back-to-back on Sat/Sun at an organized AERC ride just for that specific purpose--so I can train by myself in a ride environment. Sure would like to hear some discussion on "the start" . . . what can be proactively done in ridecamp before the ride starts to set the such as how long before saddling for the ride, how long to warm up, when to leave (besides the obvious--wait for the pack to leave) to set the horse up for success. Since we've been doing well on the trail by ourselves (not at an actual ride, but in training) am I being foolish to think I can now *safely* transfer this over to a ride environment? In the past when we didn't ride with a group, my horse was frantic to catch the next horse or group -- looking for
that herd to hook up with. At what point will I know that we can do this by ourselves at a ride without actually trying it alone? Thanks, Beth Leggieri Denton, TX
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