In a message dated 11/20/2003 9:16:05 PM Mountain Standard Time, penelope_75647@xxxxxxxxx writes:
I just can't mimic the conditions at training/conditioning rides that take place during an actual endurance ride. At home my horse is sane...vaccums up everything in sight.... drinks like a fish within the first 10 miles and will tell me when he's tired. At a ride he is waaaay pumped up (sometimes he litterally shakes just standing cuz he's so excited). He dosn't drink until mile 15-20...won't eat out on the trail if he even thinks there is another horse he needs to catch up to...and rarely acts tired.. On training rides he conserves energy by being a thinking horse and works with me...at an endurance ride he will waste alot of energy by being a reactive horse, his thinking brain dosn't engage until well into the ride.
Experienced endurance riders preach, "Ride at endurance rides the same way you condition for them....speed and intensity, etc."
BUT, the STRESS of an endurance ride, i.e., long trailer rides, fine muscle fibers twitching while going down the road for hours, strange water, standing tied to trailers, hubbub, inability to focus cause all the pretty horses are there screaming and prancing, etc., then the start of the rides, herd-sweep sweeping through the horses, etc........
I've found that I actually am more comfortable riding JUST BELOW THE LEVEL AT WHICH I CONDITION....the added stress of being AT an endurance ride, then RIDING at the endurance ride, can factor in without WEIGHING in too much.
There are folks who ride faster than they condition for, and never pay attention to the additional stressed state of their horses that sneaks in even before the trail is open.
