Ridecamp: RE: [RC] there is no way that young and small a body can ride astride a horse that many hours without damage

I can remember back in 1978 the AERC members had big
discussions about Junior riders and it has come up every
year since, with out fail. Not necessarily about age but
always some form of big discussion concerning Juniors. In
fact we have one of the larger sections of our rule book
devoted to the subject

It in my personal belief that this occurs for a particular
set of reasons.

1. Because most riders consider that endurance competition
is an adult sport.
2. Almost every other sport that started as an adult sport
became infested with children. (baseball, soccer, tennis,
football)
3. It is bad karma to dis the kids so we have to support
them no matter our true feelings.
4. Those feelings are expressed as arguments both pro and
con.

There is a very simple solution to this problem.

1. Make endurance an adult, exclusive, sport. The recent
figures disclosed support this.
2. Put all those kids in deep freeze until the age of
consent.
3. Go out and ride and have fun doing it.

Bob

Bob Morris
Morris Endurance Enterprises
Boise, ID

-----Original Message-----
From: Heidi Smith [mailto:heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2002 10:02 PM
To: jlong@xxxxxxxx
Cc: Bob Morris; ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Charles;
FASTGraphic@xxxxxx
Subject: Re: [RC] there is no way that young and small a
body can ride
astride a horse that many hours without damage


> Well, I find that statement totally at odds with reality,
but I guess
> there's not much point continuing "'tis not!"  "'tis too!"

You're right that we are not apt to agree.  The reality I've
seen is
hundreds of kids participating in equine sports with no
damage, unless as
Bob said, they come off the horses and suffer fractures.
The recent post
from Ms. Caldwell is the first time I've ever heard someone
suggest that
early riding was damaging--and I notice that she was doing
more intense
equine sports than endurance.  Although I never went the
distance or the
speed as young as 5, I certainly spent the hours in the
saddle starting at
about 6 or 7, as at the time, we didn't have the caliber of
horses that I'm
used to now, and hence it took a LONG time to get much of
anywhere.  There
were many days when I spent far longer in the saddle as a
child than I do
riding endurance, but we rarely got off a walk, so didn't do
anywhere near
the mileage.  My only regret is that I didn't get to ride
better horses
until I was a bit older (I didn't start on the half-Arabs or
the TB remount
offspring until I was about 10), and boy howdy, that sure
got me over a lot
more miles.  I was never a very good athlete, but thanks to
the riding, I
developed far better balance, etc. than I would have
otherwise, and it was
sufficient to keep me from being a total klutz in other
sports at school.  I
see nothing but benefits from the hours in the saddle as a
kid.

Heidi


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