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Thanks Pauline for your description of how things work in France.  My 
best wishes for long, happy & healthy careers for all the French horses 
whose owners are eating pasta!
Laney

Pvan19@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Hi Kim,
>  
> thanks for your post - very interesting!
>
> On what you wrote about economics:
> /" Economics is always a consideration.  What I find interesting is that 
> some of
> the programs that are not into "longevity" are either run by very wealthy
> barns and stables (example the Sheiks of the UAE) or have government 
> funding (The
> French endurance team).  When you think about this, there is really not a
> dire economic reason to push young horses.  In fact, it seems to me that 
> most of
> us in AERC, have more economic reasons (like many of us are not wealthy 
> that
> participate in endurance) to push young horses into competition or run 
> through
> a string of potentials."/
>  
> Don't forget that whomever puts money into the sport expects... results! 
> So pressure to perform is increasing... and in this scenario people 
> cannot afford to take to much time over a given horse to see if it's up 
> to international competition.
>  
> Typically here in France an endurance stable will get in 10 youngish 
> horses with potential, train them for 10 - 12 weeks and do a 60 miler to 
> see how they do. Of those ten, a couple will be sold off fairly quickly, 
> a couple might get a second chance after injury for example, and maybe 1 
> or 2 will make it thru this program in good shape, with luck 1 of them 
> will be doing a 80 or 100 miler at the end of that first year of 
> training at a lowish speed, and will then start racing the year after.. 
> if good results it will be sold off for good money to some international 
> rider, or leased for a couple of rides, often disappearing within a 
> couple of years from the endurance scene as racing takes it toll.
>  
> Some of the really good horses we have here are ridden below their 
> potential to avoid attracting attention before major championships - to 
> stop them being sold off abroad before the national team has had a 
> chance to use them to earn a title! The French gouverment will help fund 
> a rider who hangs on to his/her horse specifically for this reason - to 
> avoid 'horse drain' . Typical example: Georgat ridden by Barbara L. in 
> Dubai and by one of the Maktoum sons in Compiègne last summer... the 
> owners resisted selling the horse earlier in 2005 but after Dubai the 
> money just got soo huge they couldn't refuse.
>  
> If you're not wealthy and have bought a horse ( meaning you'll eat cheap 
> pasta for the rest of your life) you want it ... to LAST as long as 
> possible, and incidentally perform as best as it can without doing long 
> term harm.. the whole point being that if you 'break' it you won't be 
> able to afford another one and therefore will not be riding...at all.
>  
>  From personal experience - see what I mean? I think the economics 
> actually have quite the adverse effect from what you could expect!
>  
> brgds,
>  
> Pauline
>  
> ps for Laney: in France, 18200 endurance ride starts in 2005, of which 
> 81% were local rides of 40 miles or less. This percentage was 83% in 
> 2004. We'll need 2006 data to call this a trend... but it sure looks 
> like one.


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