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Re: [RC] re: any horse can do 25 miles - D'Arcy Demianoff-ThompsonAnyone that thinks they can take a horse that has spent any amount of time in pasture and have it go down the lane for 25 miles without a problem is reckless and irresponsible. I have watched the thread with a lot of interest and curiousty. Why? Because I have a lot of older pasture ornaments in their late teens to mid twenties. They have earned their retirement. Well, I thought they would like to do nothing more than lounge around in pasture all day. Then the tread started with how many older horses were being given a new job on the trail. I decided to see how that would float past these guys and to see if they wanted to do it.
I was amazed and started to take a couple of my older horses, Samburu KA now 26 and Cejlon now 23 out for regular works. I have put them up and down Kruk Trail in the Pleasant Valley area of Placerville. The trail is steep to moderate sloops. The loop is a 5.1 mile round trip gate to gate. Let me tell you something when we first started Sammy finished his first work with his front legs shaking! We hadn't even broke into a trot! Cejlon was not as weak in his front legs but his back legs were a little wobbly. Sammy has logged in 17 hours and Cejlon has logged in 14 hours. This is a regular work on the same trail 3 days a week. Sammy's last work he was steady on his legs and has not been broke out of more than a trot yet. Same for Cejlon. However, what I have discovered is that they want to keep going. They LOVE the time and the work. So much for
retirement.
However, tell me do you think they are ready for a 25 mile or anything else yet? I think not! I have a 9 year old mare that can beat the pants off of both of those guys put together and I would NOT even think of taking her on a 25 mile or anything else yet! It takes a lot of time and work to build muscle and stamina. If anyone thinks they can take a horse right out of pasture and it ought to do a 25 mile without a problem needs to try and run a 10K without any training first! Then let's talk conditioning.
In the meantime it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to read the stats on AERC for hours ridden in competition and then compare those names with the names on this message board! Seriously, there are not enough hours in the day for the amount of studying you can do and people you can listen to and learn from. I wish I had more hours in my day to learn from many of these people.
D'Arcy Lynne
"A friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart. One that holds your heart in their hands as if it were glass!"
----- Original Message ---- From: David LeBlanc <dleblanc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: Cindy Collins <c_collins@xxxxxxx>; Ridecamp <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Wednesday, November 1, 2006 8:13:07 PM Subject: RE: [RC] re: any horse can do 25 miles Cindy said: >You know if everyone would go back to my "original" quote: "any horse that can go 10-15 miles in training at a reasonable pace should be able to finish a 25 miler in 6 hours." There wouldn't be much to argue about. Sure, and when you qualify it like that, I don't have any argument with you. I do have a disagreement with Linda, and a lot of other people who don't qualify their assertion that any pasture potato can do 25 miles as you have. I wasn't disagreeing with _you_, nor was I twisting your words. I've seen this particular thread go by too many times, and I think it's dangerous. It leads people to underestimate how much work even a 25 would be, especially up here on some of our mountainous rides. I wouldn't pull a horse out of the pasture and try and do 25 miles in a trail ride, much less ask them to do it at speed in the excitement of an endurance ride, and I don't think you're disagreeing with me, either. Christina is wanting to be cautious, and that's a great trait in this sport, doubly so for someone who's new. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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