Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

At 07:23 PM 9/21/2004, Ed & Wendy Hauser wrote:
> There never has been a gelding that lost a year of competition because of 
> a pregnancy.

And there was never a mare that was forced to lose a year of competition, 
either.  Mares can compete when they're pregnant.  You wouldn't want to be 
taking an 11 month mare on Tevis, but I can't think of any reason why you 
couldn't take a mare on a responsibly ridden 50 miler pretty far into the 
pregnancy.

You can start some easy conditioning of the mare with the foal at side - as 
you bring her back to top form, you're also getting a nice base on the 
foal, and when the mileage is too much, the foal gets practice being weaned 
for longer and longer periods.  If you time a pregnancy right, you don't 
have to "lose" much competition time at all.

And, of course, if you don't want to even lose that much opportunity for 
competition when riding a mare, you just don't breed her.  I don't see much 
of a problem with that!

________________________________
   Lif Strand      fasterhorses.com
           Quemado NM USA
High Country Rider:  An endurance rider's journal
   www.fasterhorses.com/highcountryrider/