Re: [RC] Philosophy and goals in distance riding ! Long! - Sisu West Ranch
<<I am curious why people have that idea that
endurance is dangerous for horses. >>
Many folk who's contact with horses has all been
from the show, and European disciplines, are firmly convinced that horses are
extremely fragile critters. Even if they acknowledge the existence of
feral, non-owned horses, in the "West", this does not apply to their
horses.
This attitude is not surprising. All of their
contact has been with pampered stalled horses. They have seen pneumonia go
through their barn in the winter. The response is to turn up the
heat. They can't believe that my horses don't die each winter when they
are out on pasture.
Lameness is as much or more of an issue than it is
with us. They have been taught that it is a result of "wrong steps on an
improper surface", so they ask the barn manager to put another layer of stuff in
the arena and do a better job of dragging. The very thought that a horse
can negotiate the rocks we find on a trail and stay sound is
laughable.
The American, cowboy wanna-be, trail rider has a
different perspective. Their frame of reference is that horses can sprint
for a couple of minutes, but have no idea of how hard a horse can work if
conditioned, or how to condition a horse. There are no articles in the
magazines they read about conditioning which includes what we would call
LSD. (My old trail riding friends thought that when I said LSD I meant a
couple of hours at 3 mph).
The result is that their horses are winded after a
half mile of uphill, and near colic after 15 miles at 3 mph. Having
experienced this, they naturally extrapolate to all horses and decide that we
must be cruel to ask ours to actually move out.
Conversely, those who own gaited horses know their
horses go much faster than their friends stock type horses. They often
think that they are going much faster than they actually are. I found it
humorous, that they would sit around a campfire, and talk about how their horse
could go "7 mph, all day". They would then suggest that since I was
a distance rider, I should buy one from them. I would always counter by
listing the next distance ride, and suggest that they enter and demonstrate the
superiority of their breed. The excuses were always quite funny.
I guess my bottom line is that many American horse
owners do not have any frame of reference that would enable them to understand
that horses can and do work for their living. That is to bad. The
horses and their owners are missing out on a lot in life.
A friend took her distance horse to some team
penning one winter. She was able to impress the other participants by only
needing one horse that never seemed to get tired. Her example actually got
a number of them putting some LSD on their horses, which improved
their results in arena work.
Ed
Ed & Wendy Hauser 2994 Mittower
Road Victor, MT 59875
