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RE: Tevis, slower riders, some random thoughts



We try not to go for more than 35 km without water for our horses when training and we tank them up before and as soon as can. We also insist on water every 5 km on a ride, which can be really tough when you have to haul it by 4 wheel drive into the sandy middle of nowhere. But our horses do fine on training rides and no one has ever had any crashes on training rides, so.....

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
gabbani@starnet.com.eg

-----Original Message-----
From: Lif Strand [mailto:fasterhorses@gilanet.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2000 6:00 PM
To: ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: RC: Tevis, slower riders, some random thoughts

At 10:44 AM 7/20/00 -0400, Sandy wrote:
a lack of water sent me into orbit at a 1997 ride - my old girl went nearly 15 miles without a sip

I guess this is just my own unique way of looking at things, but I *expect* our horses to be able to go 15 to 20 miles without water on a ride.  We condition that way, we expect to race that way.  Out here in the middle of nowhere, if you can't ride that far without a water stop, then you will be stuck riding in a very constricted path, back and forth from water tank to another.  You sure couldn't ride anywhere else.

One thing Tom Ivers said to us (and probably has written in one or more of his books) is that when you condition, you work out for longer, harder, faster, farther and [my take on this], drier, more humid, that is with more extreme conditions than what you expect to find during competition.  I totally agree with this but maybe I'm just being cruel to our horses?  It just seems so logical, and so far none of our horses have had any problem whatsoever going for long distances inbetween water stops.  Lif



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