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Some of the biggest things that I took away were the importance of horsemanship, cross training (i.e., dressage, arena work, exposure to real life, etc.) and riding skills to have healthy horses with long careers.  Also that endurance should be fun for you and your horse.  Each horse has a job that they are best at so just do it . . . . . . kim from lakeport

On 3/1/07, rides2far@xxxxxxxx <rides2far@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

To those who went to the convention and actually got to go to the
lectures...I'm envious!  I was so busy getting ready for talks, or
signing books at my booth that I didn't get to attend anything.

Now I'm writing an article for a magazine that wants to know what
happened at the convention...so?

As I read the line up of speakers I could kick myself for being there
and not setting up my camcorder to video the things.

What was the overall conclusion you drew from the Pride Project
study? One person said it was that "normal" for an endurance horse
isn't necessarily what had been considered "normal" blood profiles
for the general horse public in the past. Comments?  Anyone got Trish
Dowling's e-mail address?

Dr. Schott reported on "Why Horses Don't Finish Endurance Rides".
Anyone take notes on statistics or anything?  I don't have to report
these as *fact* but trends are interesting to alude to.

INTERNATIONAL  Word I heard from the International meeting was that
they're actually giving strong consideration to dropping the World
Championship mileage to 75 miles and having the "Grand Prix Finish"
where if you're not finished within a certain percentage of the
winner's time you're simply awarded points for how far you got, being
stopped at the next vet check. If you were there...comments? (don't
have time for a big discussion on how we feel about this
idea...though I'm leaning towards being content for them to form
their own sport that's that different from ours and leaving us be
with our 100's!)  Someone on RC commented that in Becky's talk a show
of hands was asked for as to how many were interested in
International and 3 or 4 raised their hands. Is that so?

Could anyone comment on talks by:

Julie Suhr (Trail Etiquette)
Angie McGhee (Realist's Guide or Why do I do this?)
Victoria Maxwell DVM (Joint Health)
Tom Sayvetz, MD (Pedigrees & breeding for Endurance)
Olin Balch (Farriery Preferences of Endurance Riders)
Olin Balch (wet labs)
Backy Hart & Robin Groves (Training to Ride a More Competitive 100)
John Crandell II, Steve Rojek, Ruth Waltenspiel, Connie Driskell &
Jan Jeffers (Ask the Experts)
Erin Klentos (3 years development Plan)

Come on guys, share what you learned! (Man I wish I could have
listened to them all!)

My take from the convention is that AERC's emphasis now is on
LONGEVITY. I had already come to this conclusion when I asked Mike
Maul, the new president, what he would like to be the emphasis during
his term. His immediate answer was "Longevity". Our awards
(Pard'ners, & Hall of Fame went to horses with 10,000+ miles.) Many
talks were on soundness, shoeing & joint health. Not a lot of
emphasis on speed other than Becky's talk and from what I read on RC
sounds like the people who went to that talk were more interested in
completing...which again appears to be a split between the mass of
AERC and the International emphasis. Even our fast horses are only
glorified *after* they've stood the test of time.

Comments? You've got about 8 hrs to enlighten me. :-)

Angie

Angie


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