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RE: RE: [RC] [RC-Digest] 25 or 50 - heidi

Nancy wrote:

I'm really glad you posted, especially this:


From: BCsiren@xxxxxxx
Again, I speak for myself...but I "didn't know what I didn't know"...


I cringe inside when people show up at their first ride and say they've been 
training their horse x number of months/years to prepare, yet they haven't 
ever been to a ride. They have the very best of intentions, but it really is 
hard to truly prepare for something you haven't seen or experienced.


I really liked that phrase, too.  It really sums it up.  

But I think an important point here is to differentiate between whether
it is good for HORSES to start right off with endurance distances
versus whether it is good for PEOPLE to start right off with endurance
distances.

For the PEOPLE, I think the answer is usually NO.  Certainly there are
those who have sufficient background/miles, and I don't want to
discourage those.  But they are in the minority.  I was one of those--I
dabbled a bit with CTR, and I grew up riding range daily, with a pretty
accurate idea of the number of miles that I covered.  My first ride was
a 100-miler--and although it was definitely a tough challenge, my horse
and I finished just fine.  But in observing new people in the sport for
the past 30 years, I'd have to say that this is NOT the most auspicious
way for the majority of newbies to start out.  Many will do only one or
two LD rides and realize that they DO have the skills and conditioning
to go further.  But many will find exactly what was quoted above--they
didn't know what they didn't know.  And that's one of the many reasons
why AERC has LD.

But the HORSE is another story.  If the horse has an experienced rider
at the helm, and has some degree of conditioning, and is an individual
with a lot of talent (again, it takes an experienced rider to know
that, odds are), then I firmly believe that it is often better for the
HORSE to start right out doing 50s.  That way, he learns right off the
bat that he has to take care of himself, because it's gonna be a long
day.  He learns that it is foolish to hurry in the beginning--again,
because it's gonna be a long day.  For many horses, this lesson is
learned much more quickly by starting right out on 50s--they figure it
out the first time, and by the second ride, they are old pros.

So it really depends who the novice is--the horse or the rider.

Heidi


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