What is Base?

[Cheryl Newbanks <horsetrails@inficad.com>]

I had an interesting conversation with my buddy Scott Sansom today about 
his definition of base miles vs. my definition of base miles.  The 
interesting part is it seems that Base is relative to where you are in the 
sport.  Ok, when I started before doing my first ld, base was what I did to 
get my horse to that first competition.  I still kinda hold with that 
theory.  Scott is looking towards his first 100, after winning his last two 
50's, and doing that after approx. 1250 miles of competitive 50's.  Base to 
him is all those competitive 50's he did, not the training miles but the 
racing miles. OK so base to a 100 miler prospect is very different when 
compared to what base is to a 50 mile rider.

So what do you all think?  What is base to you?  I've always thought it was 
all the l.s.d. work we do to get them to their first competition.  Is it 
really all relative to where we currently are in the sport and I wonder if 
my definition will change when I get up to the point of thinking about 
doing my first 100?



                                  Cheryl Newbanks
~~~          ~~  ^ ^        SW Region
~~~\      _~~/  /\ /        Litchfield Park, AZ
       (   ) _ _   ) ' '        horsetrails@inficad.com
       / /          \ \
      / /            \ \
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