Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Cunningham, Marci wrote:
> ...I don’t 
> think you need to be covering 12 miles in an hour and a half before you 
> go to your first LD ride; after all you have 6 hours to go 25 miles 
> including your hold times.  If you can average 5 to 6 miles an hour you 
> will do fine.  Later on you can increase your speed but at the beginning 
> I think it is better to error on the side of caution and go slower.

My advice regarding being able to cover 12 miles in an hour and a half 
was not intended to encourage great speed.

First, the 12 miles in 1.5 hrs suggestion requires that a horse be able 
to travel at an average of 8 mph for *only* one and a half hours, not 
for the entire length of time on a 25-35 mile course.  A 
well-conditioned horse should not have any problem with doing that.

Second, in order to "average 5 to 6 miles an hour", you will need to go 
faster at some points to make up for going slower at others.  If your 
horse can comfortably complete a 12 mile conditioning ride in 1.5 hrs, 
he will be well prepared to do that.

Third, one never knows what will happen at a ride.  It is timely that 
this OD Limited Distance issue just occurred:

Anne Heilgeist wrote:
> Due to the hot weather, the LD riders (during the pre-ride meeting) were
> informed that the hold time would be extended.  Due to that extension
> and the extreme heat, only two riders actually finished within the
> maximum time allowed.  Now that LD requires special consideration if
> completions are to be given to the rest of the LD riders.

If the bulk of those riders had conditioned their horses well enough to 
cover 12 miles in 1.5 hours on a conditioning ride, they would probably 
not have been overtime at OD.  But those who could just barely cover 12 
miles at 5 mph, once hit with the extra hold time AND the unusually hot 
weather, were doomed to fail.

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