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> > I am curious why people have that idea that endurance is dangerous for 
> > horses. 
A few years ago I did the Pyramid Challenge which goes over the Rolex Course 
(OK *around* the Rolex Course). My horse was in *heaven* on that mowed grass. 
He was just loving it. When I got home I was reading, I believe, in the 
Chronicle of the Horse an interview with a Eventer who was complaining that the 
course had been rock hard, very bad on the horse's legs, hadn't been properly 
aerated or something like that. I thought, "My gosh, what would they think of 
the baked clay and gravel at Dawson Forest!"  

Then the Chronicle hired me to cover the Liberty Run 100 in Augusta and I 
talked about the high heat, humidity and deep sand. It was apparently discussed 
on a dressage list and a woman there was pretty upset that on a day when her 
horse was sweating in front of his fan we were out riding 100 miles. I can see 
where, from the outside, they'd get the idea that this sport is rough. It 
*seems* like it would be from their point of view. However, if you train like 
we train, after the horse has matured like we do, on horses that are suitable 
for the sport like we ride...it's very safe. I would never have believed that 
my barrel horse that had to run around 15 seconds would refuse to enter a ring, 
and that my endurance horse would dance to leave the out timer at 88 miles. It 
isn't especially logical but it works.

By the way, I recently looked at a horse owned by a man whose family was very 
in to barrel racing. He told me he had gone to one endurance ride and had been 
extremely impressed with how much the riders cared for their horses. He said, 
"I've been in horses all my life. Been to all kinds of shows, rodeos and such, 
and there's always some people there who just shouldn't own horses...but at 
that endurance ride I didn't see anybody like that. They all seemed really 
concerned about taking really good care of their horses."  He wanted to stay 
with endurance but his daughters barrel raced so he never got to come back.

Angie



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