Re: Negative Treatment Towards LD riders and horses!

["S. Brown" <sbrown@wamedes.com>]

>
>Ok, here goes.  This weekend I did a ride, to remain un-named but you all
>know what state I live in:}  From the get go the Ld's were made to feel
>like second class citizens. 

I've only been on this list for about 3 months but I have encountered
several comments on how the LD riders are treated this way.  I'm new to
endurance riding as a sport and a competition...but I'm NOT new to horses
OR to riding in the mountains around here (or athletic conditioning and
physiology)...and I plan on entering my first "structured" ride in
September in the LD division.  I have two greenish horses that we (my
friend and I) are currently working with.  (My former horses were their
mothers.)  My friend has ridden a little in endurance competition in Oregon
but that leaves three of us that have never done it at all!!  

The way I see it, I've got no business entering anything BUT LD at this
point.  I'm an intelligent person -- I take extremely good care of my
horses and do my homework before I dive into something.  I do all that I
can to minimize mistakes that could hurt my horses or myself.  My main goal
is to do the best I can under the circumstances and this is what I see as
the best route to take with this discipline.  I am NOT, however, looking
forward to any "second class citizen" type of treatment from anybody riding
the endurance lengths.  

One of the aspects I detested about "A" circuit dressage shows (during my
brief attendance until I realized I hated them ;-)) was the prevalence of
dressage divas that looked down on anyone that didn't ride AT LEAST third
level on a big moving horse that cost a MINIMUM of $10,000 untrained (and
yes, I had one of those...and can ride 4th level but have never shown that
high since I figured out very quickly that I didn't like that type of
competition.)  IMO that was unwarranted snobbery that didn't bode well to
the essence of dressage -- the *real* object of the competitions being to
check the correctness and thoroughness of the horse that is being trained.
Besides which, the bulk of the overhead was funded by the *lower* level
riders and the shows wouldn't be possible without them.

I'm inclined to think that those that have reached the higher ranks in any
discipline would be eager to help along the newbies since it's the "lower
levels" that often make it possible for the "upper level" competitors to
compete...along with the obvious fact that NO ONE starts at the top and we
should never forget "from whence we came"! ;-)  To me, some of the comments
sound like an ego problem...which often stems from the person's own
insecurities.  

This may not be what it is actually like with endurance competitors, but
I'm hearing a fair amount of comments that sound like this and it makes me
wonder.  If the newbie feels put down or looked down on, I know it's all
very possible for it to be a "problem" with the newbie.  Sometimes a lack
of understanding of what's going on is the contributing factor, sometimes a
lack of education, and sometimes it's an unrealistic expectation from the
newbie...i.e. wanting the same recognition for doing 25 as the person doing
a 50 or a 100.  I don't know...(especially since I'm still a PRE-newbie! <g>)

So...I'll get off of my soapbox now. ;-)  My LD ride(s) may not be
"endurance" yet and my horses may not be *world class* at this time (or,
perhaps, ever), but I would really like to get the respect I deserve for
trying to enter this discipline in a smart way for the good of all
concerned.  How do I handle it from here??

Back to lurking...;-)

Sue