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[RC] What's in a name? - David LeBlancJoe said: ... an LD ride is not an endurance ride. Challenging for some people, and some horses, yes -- but not an endurance ride. The funny thing is that all these rides are sanctioned by the American _Endurance_ Ride Conference. We're members of the American _Endurance_ Ride Conference. Seems to me that a casual observer would say that we're all doing _endurance_ rides. It isn't the American Endurance and Newbie Training Ride Conference. Meanings of words can and do change over time, sometimes quickly. "Hacker" used to be a computer lover, now it's an evil person that makes trouble on computers. "Starve" used to mean "to die", now it means really hungry. If I'm not mistaken, early in this sport, all we had was 100 mile rides, and those were endurance rides. Then 50's came along, and "endurance" got expanded to 50's too, even though a 50 isn't anywhere near as hard as a 100. Something else we see with words is that once individual people start using them to mean one thing, they tend to resist changing meanings. I have a friend who puts "Hacker" on his tax form as his job, but he doesn't break into computers - he started using the word 25-30 years ago, and to him it never changed. I think there's some of that going on here - to people who started before there even was sanctioned LD rides, the word "endurance" means something different than it does to those of us that came along later. Words have power, too - the long-time riders probably can't relate very well, but think of this - I go and get started doing an LD enurance ride, pay my money to the American _Endurance_ Ride Conference, and now there's a bunch of people telling me I'm not an endurance rider. This doesn't really make sense, esp. from the new rider's POV - I go to rides sanctioned by the AERC, I pay my dues to the AERC, but somehow I'm not an endurance rider? Why didn't I join the American Limited Distance Ride Conference instead? Is it any wonder that a lot of new LD riders feel like they're second-class members? I don't think that's the message we want to give to these folks. I also think it's an artificial distinction - in my book, 75's and up are _real_ endurance. Any one-day event shorter than that just isn't all that tough. Heck - 85-90% of everyone who starts LDs and 50's finish. Can't be all that hard if nearly everyone finishes. 75 and up, it's more like 60%. But I don't think we're going to vote in a change that says that only about 5-10% of us are _real_ endurance riders. I understand the argument that 25 miles isn't that tough to a horse, and doesn't push a horse that hard. It's true that just about anything with 4 hooves, a mane and a tail that's basically sound and healthy can be conditioned well enough to go 25 miles in 6 hours. I'd submit that the vast majority of those horses can also be conditioned well enough to go 50 miles, but only a few can go up to 75, and fewer still can do a 100. I know there's a bunch of you whose minds are made up, and I can talk (or type) forever and it won't change a thing. I am asking folks to try and put themselves into the shoes of someone new, think about how all this sounds. I only got started at this 5 years ago, and I'm sure not an "LD-er" anymore - I have a lot more "endurance" rides than LD under my belt - but I do remember all too well how it felt - and I see some of the same people here saying the same thing. I'd rather welcome new people with open arms - why can't we all be "endurance" riders - just some of us do limited distance endurance rides, others do 50 mile endurance rides, and the really tough and gifted people do 100 mile endurance rides? I'll shut up for the moment - need to get back to writing that I get paid to do - just something to think about... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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