Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Susan, Good point.

Personally, I would not mind staying with a new rider. One of the things I 
look forward to in the next few years is starting another horse who will go 
slow for two years..Fellow's little brother, Ranger. When I want to "rock 
and roll", I will ride Fellow..

Glad you are on this forum Susan..I am sure I am joined by all in 
congratulating you for seeking information to do the best by your horse.

Ranelle Rubin, Business Consultant
http://www.rrubinconsulting.com
Independent Dynamite Distributor
raneller@xxxxxxx

916-663-4140 home office
916-718-2427 cellular
916-848-3662 fax






> From: Susan Cushing <5sus@xxxxxxx>
> To: <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: RE: [RC]   Be part of the solution!
> Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2007 11:03:44 -0500
>
>
> Ranell wrote:
>
> I like this suggestion; make riding with a mentor your first ride (first 3 
> rides...?) mandatory.  That would help the new (to the sport) rider learn 
> and be a step in the right direction.
>
> This is a great idea, but not very practical for some of us.  I live in MA 
> and have no one in my area that could even mentor me since there has been 
> almost no one from my whole state competing the last two years since I have 
> started competing.  I doubt very much someone would have liked riding 12 
> hours in Vermont with me on my two 50's that I did.  My horse could not 
> have competed too much faster even with a mentor.  I know even I wish I 
> could have ridden faster, but we actually wanted to finish-which we did.  
> We don't really have enough rides in our area to help this along either.
>
> I could have had fun on the LD's that I used to start with with a mentor, 
> but not the 50's.  I have learned a lot from doing the LD's and highly 
> recommend that they continue being offered.  I would have been meeting a 
> mentor on ride day and riding with them for the first time, truly just how 
> practical is this?    I got pretty much as much info from the pre-ride 
> breifing and just talking to people as I could absorb and learn from in a 
> given ride(for my LD"S).  I did not go to my first rides with much more 
> than the desire to finish, and hopefully not humiliate myself and my horse 
> with a poor showing.  I certainly did not fool myself thinking were were 
> ready to race 30 miles.
>
> It is such a difficult thing to make a decision with this type of issue.  I 
> approached the sport without needing to feed my ego to win.  If I was a 
> rider such as the Mariposa rider, this message would not even be revalent.  
> How do we weed out the uneducated beginner with race mentality and a 
> beginner Endurance rider that has done a lot of homework?  I should not be 
> penalized as a beginner for someone else's mentality--but also horses 
> should not be made to suffer for the beginner's ignorance.
>
> Susan Cushing



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