> I think it IS asking too much to ask we ride one side of the trails..not just
> endurance riders, ANY riders. Part of riding should be fun for both horse and
> rider. I allow my horse to pick the easiest or most suitable part of the
> trail which often allows him to move from side to side.
I think, perhaps, you misunderstood my (and my dad's question). He did
not want to be coldly insistent that all horses stay to the left no
matter what the conditions of the trail/terrain. He only was asking
why riders could not go the same way that the horses before them had gone
rather than using/abusing the entire 8-10 feet.
In situations where there were obvious hazards, in fact, all the riders
did go the same way--to avoid the hazard. What he wanted to know was why
we couldn't all go the same way when there were no hazards. The roads
were (as I said) 8-10 feet wide and the (approximately) 100 horses that
passed that way (sometimes two times) used every inch of those 8-10
feet...leaving absolutely nothing for the other users. It was when there
WASN'T any hazards to avoid, and there was no preferred path that
everybody went a different way.
Obviously, if you are out for a training ride (with only a few other
horses) or if it is impossible to tell which way the horses before you
went, then this becomes a non-issue. My dad wanted to know why _at a
ride_ all the horses couldn't use the same path (the easy way to do this
would be to ask people to ride to one side or the other).
If people were concerned about dangerous things lurking in the mud...they
sould want to go the way the horse before them went, rather than risking
uncharted territory.
The reason I asked this is that it WILL BE an issue when we (OCDR) ask to
have another ride in Caspers Park. We could have gone a long way to
building a lot of good will among the other users of the park had this
been something that the riders had paid attention to (I am no saying that
they should have...I didn't even think of it until my dad asked the
question). Instead, we did, indeed, generate a certain amount of ill
will that will have to be dealt with.
What my dad was asking was that we pay attention while we ride. He was
not asking that we take our horses over hazards. His complaint was not
that one horse meandered back and forth across the road; his complaint was
that everybody went straight down the road...in a different spot, because
there was nothing in the road/terrain to keep everybody on the same path.
His contention was that it would have been nice if everybody had stayed on
the same path anyway EVEN though there was nothing in the raod/terrain to
dictate such. He wasn't asking that we do something dangersous, merely
that we be more thoughtful. It was, I think, a legitimate question, and
if we want to continue to use such trails in the future, we had better
have a better answer than "it would be less fun."
kat
Orange County, Calif.
p.s.
> Ever see trails in
> pastures? They are not straight, but they usually follow the path of least
> resistance.
Since you ask, I manage a 200 acre pasture...yes I have seen them, and the
ones in my pasture are dead straight. When the horses are on the path
(rather than wandering aimlessley and grazing and not making paths at all)
they are headed somewhere. There are the ones to the barn--straight, the
ones to the water--straight, the ones to the 2 o'clock tree--straight.
They even got striaght up/down rather steep hills. Horses do not meander
aimlessly when they are headed somewhere.
However, what horses do and where they go when they are at liberty is not
particularly relevant when deciding what we are going to ask of them when
under saddle. They wander around with their heads down most of the time
too, but I don't ride them that way.
> If I had to spend all of my time with both hands and both legs
> on my horse to keep him straight, I guarantee you it won't be fun for more
> than 15 minutes. Try it some time!!
Actually I have ridden thousands of miles this way. But then, I think
one of the most valuable maneuvers available to the trail rider (unless
you are just going for a saunter in the park, but that isn't what
endurance riders do) is the half-halt. A maneuver that is impossible to
execute if I don't have "both hands and both legs on my horse." And I have
lots of fun. In addition to keeping my horses straight, I keep them
balanced, supple, and responsive (and a bunch of other things too, but
those things would be motivation enough). "Try it some time!!"
This also has nothing to do with whether I take the same path as the
horse that came before me.