Re: What's your toughest ride?

["Joe Long" <jlong@mti.net>]

On Sat, 5 Sep 1998 11:55:34 -0600, "Robert Morris"
<bobmorris@rmci.net> wrote:

>Sorry Joe, I cannot equate low completion to tough ride. Remember that the
>concept of endurance riding is completion and not elimination. In fact one
>of the rides Joe mentioned was designed expressly for elimination and not
>completion.

????  The rides I listed weren't tough because their completion rates
were low; their completion rates were low because they were extremely
tough rides.  That does not mean there are not some tough rides which
did not have low completion rates.

I don't know of any ride that was expressly designed to eliminate
riders.

>Tough is just what it means. Tough does not mean stupidity (<<The first
>running in 1980 was
>> during a severe heat wave -- there were livestock advisories out, 
>farmers were losing stock in their fields.>>) It means a trail that proves
>the training and conditioning of each particular horse as compared to that
>of all the others under reasonable conditions. Tough is enduring not
>eliminating!!!  

If we knew then what we know now, that 1980 100 mile ride would have
been canceled due to the severe conditions.  Fortunately, we had good
riders and good vets and no horse needed treatment.  BTW, one of the
riders (who pulled when he saw he could not make it in 24 hours) was
the then-President of the AERC.

Bob, why don't you tell us about the toughest rides you've ridden?

-- 

Joe Long
jlong@mti.net
Business Page  http://www.mti.net
Personal Page  http://www.rnbw.com