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[RC] Longriders' reaction to the Derby - Maryanne GabbaniI've been reading the discussion of this and there's been a lot tossed around about whether in fact there are vets or the horses can handle it and a lot of other things.? I read a lot of the initial emails regarding this project and I think that the real issue is not just that the horses or riders could get hurt but the seriousness with which this project was undertaken. Most of you take your endurance riding pretty seriously in the sense that you do the best you can to prepare yourselves and your horses to handle the terrain, weather, whatever may appear in a ride. That's not to say that you don't have fun and laugh. If you weren't having fun, you wouldn't be doing it. The Longriders tend to take horse journeying the same way. They work hard on their preparation and support to ensure the best possible outcome in a situation that isn't at all predictable.
The sense of the Mongol Derby that I got from the organisers of it in the opening emails was more along the lines of "Say! Wouldn't wouldn't it be a hoot to dump a bunch of people out in Mongolia and let them try to manage to find their way through it."? Yeah, right. It would be a ton of laughs. Now I'm sure that it is a very lucrative way of doing business to advertise that you are offering an adventure, no holds barred, danger included free for all and basically supply almost nothing to your clients in the way of support. All the effort is in the marketing and whatever happens on the trip happens and that's not your problem. I'm pretty comfortable with that if the clients are being dropped on glaciers or where ever and have to get home with homemade ski's or bicycles or other vehicles. Things that have spare parts. I do take people on riding trips for hire and I happen to take my work rather more seriously. I want to offer an interesting ride that is as exciting as people happen to want...which can be not at all to very, depending on whether people are up for a great bug-in-the-teeth gallop in the desert. I know where my people go and I want to cause the least amount of stress to the locals as possible. I most definitely would never let anyone take one of my horses alone even 5 km, let alone 40. My horses are family and working associates and don't deserve such treatment.? My real complaint about this kind of "yee-haw, let's get crazy" tourism is that it is slipshod and unprofessional. I really am curious as to how these people are going to cope with this trek in Mongolia. I've been taking riders out here in Egypt for about five years now and I've learned that a) 90% of the riders don't ride nearly as well as they think they do...especially when encountering strange things and foreign languages (and Egypt is simply one strange thing after another), and b) they usually don't want to go as fast as they might think they do. Every time I take a group out, I warn them "Be careful what you ask this horse for, because you are likely to get it times two."? The entire idea of creating a race for people who don't care if it's well-organised seems ludicrous to me. If this is an adventure tour, then call it an adventure tour. If this is a race, then shouldn't it have some structure and supervision? How can you play it both ways...though obviously The Adventurists figure that you can. I guess we will find out. Maryanne Stroud Gabbani msgabbani@xxxxxxxxx Egypt Face to Face www.alsorat.com Weblogs: Living In Egypt miloflamingo.blogspot.com Cairo/Giza Daily Photo cairogizadailyphoto.blogspot.com Turn Right At The Sarcophagus haramlik.blogspot.com Da Moose Is Loose (a blog for kids) mstroud.blogspot.com Photos of Egypt: http://www.flickr.com/photos/livinginegypt/
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