Home Current News News Archive Shop/Advertise Ridecamp Classified Events Learn/AERC
Endurance.Net Home Ridecamp Archives
ridecamp@endurance.net
[Archives Index]   [Date Index]   [Thread Index]   [Author Index]   [Subject Index]

Re: [RC] Practical Side of LD Issue - Truman Prevatt

heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:


What I find very interesting is that if one looks at relative sizes of
the endurance portions of rides, the NW region and the W region have
entries very much in proportion with their relative AERC memberships. But if you look at LD rides, the NW region, with a far smaller
membership, has a MUCH bigger LD entry. And I believe this holds true
for the SE as well. Why is this? Perhaps because we historically take
better care of our LD riders. And what this tells me is that riders in
the W region are ALREADY staying away from LD rides because of the
attitudes of the RMs. In a previous incarnation of this discussion,
one W poster suggested that the reason was that more W region riders
are into "real" endurance. Yet the "real" endurance entries (as I
already mentioned) are quite proportional to the relative memberships
of the two regions.

Yep I think you hit it square on the head.

The "bottom line" here is whether or not we care about the entry level
of this sport. Oh, sure, I know--there are lots of people who ride LD
for a lot of reasons besides being "entry level." (And I'm one of them
sometimes, and when I'm old, I'll probably do even more LD rides.) But
that does not negate the fact that MOST of our entry-level riders ARE
riding LD. So do we help them to learn what endurance is about, strive
to educate them in care of their horses, etc.? Or do we treat them like
second-class citizens? If we do the former, we have a far better
educated group of riders that moves up to endurance. And that is
something to be heartily desired, if for nothing else, for the sake of
horse welfare--which really should be one of our BIGGEST areas of
interest and concern.


Yep on the head again.

In my experience, if old RMs quit putting on rides, new RMs step forward
to take their places.  So I'd submit that if a few jaded RMs DO quit
putting on rides because of something this educational and beneficial,
then perhaps the riders will actually be better off in the long run.

Heidi




It seem to me to be an idol threat for RM's to threaten to drop rides if the are required to do this, that or the other thing - especially when there is long term benefit in doing so. And if they do drop the rides - someone else will surly pick up their date.

Truman





--

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

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!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Replies
RE: [RC] Practical Side of LD Issue, heidi