Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

In case anybody was wondering why I even brought this whole subject up weeks 
after Steph first made her comment about the bad press that endurance got at 
the WEG in Aachen, here it is.

I have a friend who has an up and coming Grand Prix dressage horse ("as soon as 
she is confirmed in her 1s"); however, she told me that this horse was laid up 
for a few months from a foot injury sustained from some "bad footing" at a 
venue we both have shown at.  A venue, mind you, that has better footing than 
the stuff that I consistently train in at home (a day doesn't go by that I 
don't pick up an assortment of rocks and chuck them over the fence of my 
'dressage court'…that my horse also happens to live in).  

She commented that this really emphasized to her that she needed to be really 
careful about the venues she takes the horse to, and only taking her places 
where she is sure the footing is perfect.

And I thought to myself that she would be doing her horse a bigger favor by 
actually subjecting the horse to some less than perfect footing on a regular 
basis so she doesn't have to be so concerned about the perfection of the 
footing. She knows that I am an endurance rider, and I WANTED to comment to her 
that horses CAN work in less than perfect footing if they are conditioned to it 
and that endurance riders do it all the time, for miles and miles.  

But then I remembered that she had gone to Aachen to watch the WEG where she 
got to actually SEE how well endurance horses work in less than perfect 
footing, and I realized that using endurance as an example of how horses can 
successfully work in less than perfect footing was unlikely to be convincing to 
somebody who had been treated to the display at Aachen.

If endurance is a sport where (as reported by Leonard) all the best horses are 
lame before the start, the riders are so caught up in the race for medals that 
they are unheeding of their own horse's condition and the team vets and chefs 
are also so caught up in the race that they, too, are unheeding of the horses' 
conditions, many of the participants are totally unprepared for the conditions 
of the trail and footing because they have never ridden on anything like that 
before (despite the fact that they have known about the conditions of the 
course for more than a year), and less than half of the world's best riders can 
even finish the course, then endurance is a horse sport that I want nothing to 
do with.

I don't know whether the world endurance championships are really like this.  I 
have never been to one.  I have only read reports from endurance enthusiasts 
who have been to them (like Steph and Leo).  I didn't get a report from my 
friend the dressage rider (she was probably too polite to tell me what she 
really thought of what she saw of endurance...and I am afraid to ask:)).

I used to want to tell people, "what they do at the world endurance 
championships bears no resemblance to what goes on at local rides where the 
motto is "to finish is to win" and "the rider is responsible."

However, I am now in the position of needing to tell people "many of the other 
riders seem to think that they are not responsible, but that doesn't mean that 
I don't take responsibility or that you shouldn't too if you decide that you 
would like to give it a try."

I came up with an idea of how it is that the FEI might do something to address 
the REAL problem that championship riders appear to have a cavalier attitude 
about the fitness of their horse to the task and a willingness to ride the 
horse into the ground.  And the overwhelming response that I got was "No, no, 
they can't do that; that would be punishing people for things that are beyond 
their control."

Yes, I am disgusted.  And I bet my friend the dressage rider is too.  You can 
bet I won't be mentioning anything about endurance to her as I would be totally 
unconvincing if I were to try to say, "endurance is nothing like what you saw 
at Aachen."  From what I have heard here, it would appear that much of 
endurance is exactly like that.

kat
Orange County, Calif.


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

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!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=