Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I think it really depends on the individual and how they ride.  A lot of our rides are in parks we already ride in, so why not do an LD there?  I had been trailriding on my horse for several years before I did any endurance - in big groups with a little speed, so why not?

 

If you are poking around at a walk and afraid of every little thing, of course not!  I don't want to tick off some of my Parelli friends, but the bulk of them I would never, never say to bring their horses to an LD because they can't even trot for 5 minutes in an arena.  And most of them aren't interested anyway which is fine by me.

 

I took one of them on her first LD ride that I knew could handle it, and she finished with an hour to spare.  She went faster than she wanted to the 1st go around, but the 2nd ride, she just told me that she wanted to just let her horse go and see what she could do.  Horse was fine in both cases.  She's now addicted to the sport.  Another one of my friends bought a mustang this year to do endurance with, and found that he has a few quirks on the trail so she wisely chose to not ride in an endurance event even though he may physically be able to do it.  He's just not mentally ready yet.

 

Never did CTR, nor am I interested in doing any.

 

K.

 

On Thu, May 29, 2008 at 11:48 AM, Tx Trigger <txtrigger@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I personally would not tell a NEW person to distance riding, that they can take Ol Dobbin out and do a 25 mile ride if they had been riding regularly on weekends etc. I think that those new to the sport of distance riding, even if they do some longer pleasure rides on a regular basis, benefit MORE than the horse does, to starting at a shorter distance, or in CTR's.

 

Many of us who have been around the sport a long time, find we DO prefer to start horses in 50's, or longer CTR's.  But, we hopefully know how to take care of the horse, watch for problems etc. better than some riders new to the sport.

 

My current horse, Hank, had never done a days ride longer than about 18 miles, when I asked Dave Rabe to ride him 50 on the long XP in 2004. One week later, I had him take him another 50, and a week later, yet a 3rd. I knew Dave would do great at this task, even better than I ever would. He rode him slow, careful, and the horse got started in the sport in a way I was very pleased with.

 

But I would never tell a "newbie" to start out in this manner.

 

Jonni in TX