Start of a ride

[JERRY BARFIELD <barfield@primenet.com>]

Ditto what Anita has said.  It your horse is not easily controlled at the start it is best to start back further or at the end to teach the horse to pace better.  Otherwise the horse and you burn up a lot of valuable energy fighting each other in the begining of the ride.

We always start our young horses on rides with a mature buddy at the very end so they learn to be calm ( as much as possible ) and in control, just like any other conditioning ride.  We've learned that the hard way and it's harder to retrain a horse that learns in the beginning to race at the start.

One horse became more and more competitive at each ride and became more and more of a fight to control becase we let her start at the front,  hence she wanted to keep up with the front runners but was not ready to do so in terms of her development.  She was finishing top 5.  In order to rate her better and train her to pace and control, one ride we started her dead last and just kept a steady pace, no pulling and she was great.  She still finished 10th on that ride ( 60 miles) out of about 30 horses and just steadily kept passing.  It was a much more enjoyable ride for the rider and the horse looked great after.  Since then she has learned not to waste energy and pace better and now we can start up in the top 5 group.

Bernita BArfield
Southwind Arabians
Breeding Endruance Horses by Design
Sierra Vista, AZ