RE: Endurance as a team sport

[Sue Brown <sbrown@wamedes.com>]

>You mention that "teams are not part of Endurance Riding today".  This is
>not completely true.  I've been to a number of rides where informal teams
>compete for team awards.  I believe that PNER has a year-end team award (or
>at least they used to).  You are right that we cannot "refine our team
>strategy without practice."  However, I do not think that a group must
>necessarily practice together to learn team strategy: the practice can be
>done through participating in a number of different teams and learning how
>the basics of team strategy work.
>
We have a fledgling team with the PNER and we are learning team strategies
as we go.  It's a different concept and a lot of fun...and there's some
real tough competition between a couple of the teams who have good number
of 100 milers!  This year our team has consisted mostly of new riders with
a couple of more experienced ones.  Most of us have been doing LD with 3
riders advancing to longer distances.  Next season those of us doing the
LDs will be doing 50s and the ones doing 50s will probably be doing longer
distances.  I'm currently recruiting new students who will be able to do
LDs next spring so that we can get points in more distances per ride.  I've
never been involved in team strategy like this before and it's a lot of
fun...even at the fledgling level.   

Sue

sbrown@wamedes.com
Tyee Farm
Marysville, Wa.
ARICP Certified Riding Instructor
Recreational Riding II, Dressage I