weight

["Glenn Foster" <gfoste19@idt.net>]

Ok, this keeps coming up and I cant resist.  I'm a fairly recent 
newcomer to distance riding, but one of the things that 
initially attracted my interest was the existence of minimum
weight rules.

I am male, 5' 8" tall, and take some pride in having now reduced
a half-century old body to about 140 lb.   I believe it is biologically 
impossible for me to be light enough to even be allowed on the track
as a jockey in any traditional horse race, and that this would be true 
of the overwhelming majority of male participants in the sport.  But
here I can still participate.

From what I have read here at ridecamp and read and heard elsewhere,
there does seem to be some consensus that 'small horses' may have
an intrinsic advantage in endurance.

It would seem that if there were no weight rules at all then the small
horse / small
rider combination would be so overwhelmingly favored that the sport would
eventually evolve into something like 'flat racing', where there is no room
for participation of any males in the normal size range, and therefore,
little remaining connection between the sport and any practical application
of
horsemanship, historical or otherwise.

In other words, the most important purpose of a weight rule (such as a 165
lb rule 
or the "1/2 point BC rule",  is to prevent evolution of the entire sport
toward an 
'artificial' extreme. 

I realize we already have 'weight rules', in different forms at all
competitions.  It just
seems that I've seen recurring suggestions from some that there should be
'no rules',
and couldn't resist 'putting my .02 in'.

Glenn Foster