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RE: [RC] starting 50s vs LD - heidiMany agree with your reasoning, Truman. I don't. I have a "program" for a fifty mile horse. It never included an LD. But, then again, I live in horse country. My endurance horses are kept like horses. They are ridden with empathy and can ride "the next mile". They first become good horses (read, "train the mind, ride the training"), then they become endurance horses. If they're not good horses, I train them to be. If they won't train up, they certainly won't make good endurance horses. Most people have a horse. Or, maybe, two horses. They then try to fit that horse into the endurance hole. Sometimes, they fit. Sometimes, even with repeated hammering, they don't fit. Recognizing whether you got a round horse trying to fit into a square hole goes a long ways. I learned to swim BEST when I realized the water was over my head. :^) Guess I could've stayed in the shallow end of the pool. Frank, great post. Particularly the part about first making the horses good horses through training. We hear a whole lot about conditioning in this sport, and not NEAR enough about training. And you are right on the mark when you say that horses that don't train up won't make good endurance horses. First, an endurance horse must be a good saddle horse. There have been a few tough rogues with tough riders who have made it in the sport, but I sure hate to see them coming down the trail A well-trained horse will deal better with the stresses, will take better care of himself, and will spare his rider from being worn out--which in turn will help keep him from being worn out. And even the act of training puts a certain amount of base on a horse... One can use LD as a part of one's training--but one can easily both train and condition the horse without it. And for some horses, it's simply better to go face a tougher job the first time out of the box than it is to take them to a ride and have them ask you afterward, "Is that all there is?" (And there are plenty of horses out there with that kind of capability, backed up by that kind of rider support before they ever come to a ride.) Your comments about horses being kept like horses is very true, too. Our horses that run out here on 20 acres of hillside in a herd setting already know how to behave in a group, already understand that the boss mare is the boss, and already have a big part of their fitness program started. So they have a head-start on both their training and their conditioning... We start novice people on LDs--but although we've made exceptions, we rarely start novice horses on LDs. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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