ridecamp@endurance.net: weight

weight

Marinera@aol.com
Fri, 19 Sep 1997 13:44:01 -0400 (EDT)

If you cloned a 950 pound horse, trained the two of them identically,
put a
140 pound rider on one and a 220 pound rider on the other and sent them
down
the Tevis Cup trail, which one would get to Auburn first? If you think
you
had a sure thing in the lightweight, you are wrong. The ride for which
we
have the longest set of statistics would tell you that Nick Mansfield,
Pat
Fitzgerald, Ed Johnson (twice), Bud Dardi (twice) Sam Arnold, Boyd
Zontelli
(twice, two different horses) and Chris Knoch (twice) all put more than
200
pounds on their steeds and managed to beat the lightweights. Yes,
weight is
a factor, but so are a dozen other things, the most important of which
is
rider savvy. These riders proved that the weight handicap can be
overcome by
working on strong points in other areas.

Julie Suhr

The only thing you are proving is that on the Tevis trail where speed is
not a factor the riders and horses are competing against the trail.
These people train on the trail constantly take them off the Tevis and
put them on a trail where they have to race the other horses and you
can't find them with a search warrant. The same holds true with the Old
Dominion trail where the heavyweights that finish up front aren't in the
hunt on other trails where the horses have to sprint or can gallop,e.g.
the heavyweight that won all the laurels at the Old Dominion for Best
Condition was out run at the Gold Rush 50. He was leading my wife by 4
minutes out of the last vet check with 10 miles, my wife and another
lightweight caught him 6miles from the finish and beat him 2 minutes.
Does this tell you anything about racing and not rock climbing.
Carl Meyer

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