No Subject

[celeste <celestem@badgermining.co.za>]

Heather wrote:

I would like to write to the mag because they give the impression that 
South
Africans are new to endurance whereas I know that the sport has existed for
a while with you.  Could you give me some brief facts?  For example: when
did it start?  How many major rides?  What distance?  Approx. how many
riders in SA?  You know the usual stuff.  Then I can gently correct this
false impression that South Africans are new to endurance!

Wolfgang wrote:

It is absolutely untrue that SA in new to endurance.
I remember well an article in the ELDRIC-yearbook some years ago. It was
about the influence of weight at endurance rides (I wrote about the last
time this topic was dicussed at ridecamp). The statistics used in the
article were from SA, where, at that time, there was the most complete
data available. SA had collected every detail at every ride. I.e. they
found out that the same horse doing the same 100 miles could do the race
one full hour faster when carrying 10 kilo less.
If you are interested in that material, I can try to find it in my
"archives".

Hi Heather and Wolfgang

Being South African I thought I would answer your questions and add to
your info.

Long distance started in SA in the 1930's when the army held long distance 
rides
 much as it did it most countries. Then in 1973 a daughter of a local 
arabian breeder
 returned from the states after doing some endurance rides there, rides 
where
 started up here by a small group of arabian breeders and in 1974 our first 
National
 Championships in Fauresmith was held (yes we probably where a bit hasty 
:-)) with
 +-10 riders doing 210km over three days (80km, 80km and 50km). Endurance
 continued growing and Fauresmith over the years even attracted some of the 
USA's top riders in the form of Julie Suhr in 1980. We are not a big 
country
and probably have less than halve the equestrians (total includes dressage, 
jumping etc.)
 than any of your states. As of 31 june 1999 (our season rund from june to 
june of the
 following year as Fauresmith is in June and ends our season) we have +-35 
endurance
 clubs hosting +-52 rides between them consisting of 30km, 60km, 80km and a 
few 100milers
 with most of the 100 milers being after Fauresmith each year. As my dad is 
our Societies
 Head Timkeeper and also keeps the data base up to date I also have some 
general info for
 the season 31 june 1998 to 31 june 1999.
RIDE TIMES:
Fastest 80km - 2hrs 24min 45.58sec at an average speed of 33.4km/h.
Fastest 100miler - 8hrs 07min 04.87sec at an average speed of 19.7km/h

All horses have to be registered before their first ride and we currently 
have +-
2040 registered horses and about 1000  members.

We had a total of 2416 entries to rides this season 1336 for 80km, 582 for 
60km and 114 for 100 milers.

Our top milage is rider 11000km and we have 6 horses at around 5000km 
(please note that most riders only do their three quaklifying 80km and 
Fauresmith each year).

Our fastest Fauresmith to date was done in 1996 at a time of 8hrs 06min 
51.08sec over a distance of 200kms.

One horse has one Fauresmith three times and one has one it twice, two 
horses have completed it 9 times, four horses eight times, 5 horses seven 
times, 10 horses 6 times and +-30 five times many more have completed it 4 
or less times.

We have had a rider, Claire Amm, do the tevis in 1994 an place 4th on a 
horse owned by Potatoe Richardson and she also competed in Kansas in 1996 
aboard Chardonnay owned by Lari Shea where she placed 32nd. At the last 
world championships we had a team competing for the first time in a 100 
miler, other than their qualifying ride (most of our riders do 80km and 
Fauresmith). Here we had a rider place 13th, the others unfortunately fell 
out, expected I suppose considerering they had no 100 miler experience and 
our horse stood stabled in quarenteen for six weeks prior to flying (so no 
training was done!!!)

So you can see that although we are new to international competition and 
still need to learn stacks there, we have been doing endurance for a long 
time and it is one of the fastest growing equestrian sports in SA.

Celeste
Mawlud and Shadixx (geepers mom hope we don't have to do those times?)