Re: RC: Re: optimum time system

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated Mon, 25 Jun 2001  4:19:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time, "Michelle Fink" <michrowe@redwrench.com> writes:

<< I like the idea alot.  The hard thing is having different sets of optimum
time, right?  The rider who is new to endurance is going to have a totally
different optimum time than the rider on a horse that has done lots of LD's.>>

Bingo.  For a newbie that has not quite grasped conditioning, and is not used to riding any distance, the optimum time may well be the maximum allowable, or longer!  But for a really fit horse with a good way of going, half that time may be a walk in the park.  No one can set an optimum time for a given horse and rider except for that horse, that rider, and that trail.  And in many cases, slow is not the answer.  I've seen far too many really good endurance prospects become soured by their riders' determination to "take it slow" and consequently ride clear back in the back of the pack.  Even green, these horses should have been mid-pack horses, and have worked their way up from there.  I have personally never ridden a horse on which I felt I could or should take the maximum time allowed for a 50-miler.  I'd've had to have doubled all my hold times, or maybe then some, because even in a nice, relaxed working trot, they simply ate the trail up faster than that.  For other horses!
, it is a struggle to beat the c
lock.  You have to ride your own horse to the best of his own ability.

Heidi