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[RC] LD history - David LeBlancKathy said: I'm not an LD basher, many of my friends only do LDs, but I was under the impression that the difference was based more on the effect of the longer miles on the horse. ------------------------- Not really - some of what I'm about to post is based on what I've learned here, much of it courtesy of Heidi Smith. In the very early days of the sport, there was no minimum distance, and not much in the way of veterinary controls. People would go flat out, and there were obvious problems with the welfare of the horse. This accounts for some of the attitude we see from some of the really old-timers. Somewhere along the way, they introduced better controls - minimum pulse criteria, and so on, and made the minimum distance 50 miles. People still wanted to do shorter distances, and there were often unsanctioned shorter rides. Eventually, a new 'class' of endurance was created to sanction and control the "limited distance" rides. I believe all of the above was highly controversial, including things like dropping the typical pulse criteria from 72 to 60, which may have happened later. Thus the system that we have now - and this is why I say it's more of a historical accident than anything intentionally put together that's meant to make logical sense. It's certainly a little harder to go 50 miles than 25. You can do 25 miles without the horse eating or drinking much, but not 50. But if we look at completion rates, we find that 50's and LD's have almost exactly the same completion rates - except when it gets hot out, and then the difference isn't much. If you look at the longer distances, you don't see completion rates nearly as high as the 50's and down - those really are a lot harder. When I first started doing this (1998), I was intimidated by the prospect of a 50 - partially because of the "real endurance" vs. LD nonsense. In 2000, I went out and did one, and found that it wasn't all that hard - certainly not something worth changing titles over. Since then, I've done 2400 miles of "endurance", which is what I prefer - I think I've only got 300-something LD miles. While there's a few 50's that are truly hard, most of them aren't, and it didn't take very much additional skill past what it takes to do LD. What is hard is the longer distances and multidays. I think it's mostly a matter of the plain-bellied Sneeches vs. the star-bellied Sneeches. At the end of the day, we're a bunch of Sneeches, and the differences aren't enough to matter for anything really important. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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