Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Okay all,  this is my first post to  "Ridecamp".

I am a total newbie at this.  I've ridden a long time, and took  
college classes on horses and animal nutrtion, but I've never ridden  
more than 15 miles at once and that was when I was a teenager.  I've  
lurked on Ridecamp for a long time, have a couple books (Go the  
Distance by Nancy Loving, and the other one, the name is  escaping me  
right now, but it's by Donna Snyder Smith).  I've read all of the AERC  
website and a lot of endurance.net.

So, I've been reading the recent threads with a lot of interest.  I am  
one of these novices who hopes to give this sport a whirl.  I am more  
comfortable on the trail than the arena, I am an animal-science and  
nutrition geek, and my favorite hobbies are horse riding and hiking.   
That said, an LD sounds way more appealing to me than a 50 right  
now.   Mainly because of my horse-- she is a 13 year old, 14 hand  
Mustang pony.  I'm not sure she is physically capable of getting in  
shape for a 50 (she might be, but maybe not), but I'm pretty confident  
she can do a slow 25 if I get her fit enough for it.  She's rather out  
of shape right now-- I've only had her for a couple weeks, honestly--  
but we are at the start of a long journey here.  I was looking for an  
arab, but this pony sort of landed in my lap and I'll keep her :-)    
I'm a shrimpy human, so her size is just right for me.

A few thoughts as I'm reading all this stuff.  One is, many times it  
seems horses suffer because the vets tell the riders to slow down on  
the next leg, and the riders ignore this.  But it is fair to the  
majority of people who DO follow advice like this, to pull them *just  
in case they don't follow advice*?  I really really don't want to  
override my pony, but I'd be really upset if I got pulled because I  
wasn't trusted to listen to a vet or experienced people.

I would welcome some sort of newbie-type armband or whatever, on my  
first ride.  Then you guys might not think I'm so stupid.. :-)   Of  
course, you might conclude that anyway...

Betsy

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