Ridecamp: Re: [RC] [RC] Leaving after rides

I'm glad Heidi answered this.

Scott, while I threw a little support behind you, part of the point of my
post on this thread is that sometimes you have to go to a few rides and
watch the riders who strike you as treating their horses unkindly. I've been
wrong about riders out of ignorance or just seeing them (or their horses) on
a bad day. I'm more willing to cut them some slack than I was initially.
Some things still surprize me and strike me as not being right, but I'm just
watching and observing to see if my initial impression is correct, hoping
it's not. And I pay attention to my own horse (if she's with me).

And unkind treatment is what I'm talking about moreso than out and out
abuse. I have to honestly say that I haven't seen any out and out abuse,
thank goodness.

BUT...

The perception of the sport "out there" is balls-to-the-wall distance
racing. I'm close enough to the sport that potential participants sometimes
approach me for information. More than make me comfortable like the idea of
endurance because they just want to go as fast as they can. Getting pulled
or the idea of getting pulled doesn't phase these yahoos -- that's what the
vets are for, right? Traffic cops issuing tickets for speeding. When I can,
I introduce them to the people who mentored me and hopefully they end up
thinking it's all too much work. Unfortunately, I don't think all of them
get scared off.

Then there are the people I know would love endurance (or CTR) and I can't
get them to try it because they think all distance riders do is run their
horses into the ground. Now, where does that perception come from? It's not
from the people I know who do endurance regularly because they all have or
have had horses doing it for years and years often into their mid- to
late-teens. The perception comes from the yahoos. A few yahoos is a few
yahoos too many, IMO.

I'm at the LD level myself and I want to tell Cindy that it peeves me too
when I hear LD called "endurance". I say it is to endurance what 13 miles is
to a marathon. It's definitely something, but it's not the same. A
half-marathon is called a half-marathon for a reason.

By the same token, I want to say that I notice that the 100 milers often go
just as fast as the fastest 25 milers. The difference is that the 100 milers
have a lot of horse left (of course they do!) and the top 25 milers look
real tired to me. Just an observation, not a criticism. I personally like
the idea of having some horse left over. Isn't that what "fit to continue"
means?

Deanna



on 6/21/02 5:15 PM, Heidi Smith at heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

>> Suppose the percentage of people not taking proper care of their mounts IS
>> edging upward as people come to the sport from a show or pleasure
> background
>> rather than the working background that was more common years ago. (I
>> believe "someone" pointed out in a different thread that that is one way
> the
>> sport has changed.)
> 
> Deanna, I really appreciate input from newbies, as you are right that
> sometimes things take fresh eyes.   But I can assure you that the abuse rate
> appears to be going down.  Standards have tightened, knowledge is
> increasing, and most abusers get weeded out.  Much as I loved the "good old
> days" and still appreciate the level of horsemanship that was brought into
> the sport by many "back then", we also had the syndrome that ANY new sport
> goes through, where everyone who was disenfranchised by everything else or
> had been run out of everything else had to try us out.  We've matured to
> where we no longer see as much of that, thank heavens.  Some of the new
> people may occasionally "abuse" their horses through ignorance, but most are
> trying and willing to learn, and therefore tend not to repeat their
> mistakes.  The chronic abusers in our sport are a tiny minority.
> 
> Heidi
> 


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