RE: WATER, WATER, WATER, WATER (was: RM.... and Metabolic pulls at Tevis)

["Maryanne Stroud Gabbani" <gabbani@starnet.com.eg>]

>From one desert endurance rider to another.  You don't need this
much water.  If your 50 km (~31 miles) ride had two loops of
approximately the same length, there is sufficient water if it
is only provided at the vet check (I am assuming that because
you speak of them as loops that the vet check is between the
loops).<

This is how we work when we are training, but at this point most of our
riders are novices and we worry more about competition-induced mental
retardation than anything else. Also when we have supervising FEI vets, they
are usually coming from Dubai where CIMR is endemic...hence the insistence
on 5 km. For people with sense I'd agree that water could be more spaced
out.




>Lest you think that the Egyptian desert is different from the
Nevada desert (it is in many ways) or Egyptian horses have different
water requirements than California/Nevada horses, I recall
having ridden from Giza to Saqqara and back (~ 30 km each way,
if my recollection is correct), watering the horses only at the
mid-way point at Saqqara....on the Fourth of July (temperature
was approx 110 deg F/43 deg C).<

I know this is often done although we, and our horses, prefer water at
closer intervals and we tend to do more of our training rides later in the
evenings or even at night when we have a decent moon...This is one of the
desert's real treats.



>Do more vet checks, more water stops, more rider amenities, more
crew assistance lead to faster riding times?  Probably.  But I
don't consider faster riding times to be a goal.  In endurance
riding, ride managers should be most interested in establishing
not a fast ride, but a true test of endurance, both of horse and
rider.  Otherwise, it is not an endurance ride.  Its just a series
of sprints from water stop to water stop, from vet check to vet
check.<

Sounds like you're describing Gulf-style riding, something I'd like to
discourage here.