Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Having a retired arthritic endurance gelding, a hot and difficult Bey Shah gelding, and an older broodmare to ride, I occassionally will do an LD with people who want to experience an endurance ride.  I'm still waiting for my younger horse to get his brain together before I do any endurance on him.  Maybe he'll get to do an LD this fall.

 

However, I really, really miss doing 50's and don't want to do be a career LD rider.  I tried riding my 18 y.o. mare who's only done a few LD's at an easy local 50 last month and got pulled at the first vet check.  She was only marginally off, and it was only after a three hour lameness evaluation, a hairline fracture in the pastern showed up on the xrays.  It looks like her belated endurance career is not going to take off.  The only reason it even occurred to me to do a 50 on her is that the LD's seemed relatively easy for her.

 

I may be only doing LD's for awhile.  I don't feel like a second class citizen, and I don't care for placings or BC either.  But that's the way I feel about 50's too anyway.  My whole attititude about being competitive changed when I realized that I don't have the time and energy for micromanagement to be competitive at the moment.  I'd rather just ride my best friend and enjoy the wonderful scenery I would probably never see if I didn't do this sport.  Some people will sell their older horses no longer able to be competitive to get a younger more physically able horse, but I'm not like that.

 

So what if I never get my name mentioned in Endurance News for being a premier LD rider.  That absolutely means nothing to me.  If any one of my horses are sound at the moment (that means brainwise too) I could pull them out of the pasture without much conditioning and complete an LD at any time.  I don't see any glory in it at all.  I do it for fun, and maybe it'll get me closer to getting to do 50's again too.   This is my reward for doing LD's.

 

K.