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I dunno, being in DQ land, endurance riders are scum... just kidding folks....  I just think that the majority of the horse owner population that I'm around have no clue about what endurance riding is. 

 

I moved to a new boarding stable in Milpitas CA - a rather large boarding stable - and was introduced to the other "endurance rider."  Went training with her and found that her horse would not cross water.  I never looked up her record, but another one of my friends did and told me she has only entered LD's and had a pretty poor completion record in LDs.  I had her beg her to go into a trot and she would trot for a minute and go back to a walk.  Sigh....

 

Then she did the barn practice dressage tests and she scored rather well.  Funny that she didn't say she was a "DQ" but rather describe herself as being an "endurance rider!"

 

I boarded in expensive boarding areas in Portola Valley (really we were the "slums" of that community), had a little mixed bag of trail riders to ride with, but when it came to doing endurance I moved to that little haven of Lightfoot Stables.  Exposed to world class endurance riders.  Then back to a "normal" boarding stable where the idea of riding more than a Poker Ride is too strenuous for most.  Sigh... 

 

K.

On Sat, Jul 5, 2008 at 3:26 PM, David LeBlanc <dleblanc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Bruce said:

>Is someone actually objecting out  loud when you refer to
yourself with those terms?  That would be silly.

It would be exceptionally silly in my case. I have 2650 miles of completions
at 50+ miles, and only 300 or so in LD.

>I think one of the reasons people like to refer to
themselves as an endurance rider is that they know there is inherent
honor and respect contained in the term, and they want to be connected
and identified with it.

Well, see, I don't think I deserve any honor or respect for having done a
50. If anyone wants to grant me any respect, let it be on the basis of the
fact I've got a horse who also has 2650 miles, it's his 10th season, we
complete a lot of rides, and we're still going strong.

>And that honor and respect was initially derived
at a time when there was nothing but 100 mile finish lines to cross to
become one. If we keep moving that finish line closer to obtain that
title, where does it end? The 12 or 8 mile fun ride?

This is what I've got a problem with. We're positioning this as something to
honor and respect when it isn't. The people I respect have lots of lots of
miles, and super completion rates. The rest of us are a bunch of riders.

As I've had a really silly amount of school, I'll use that as an analogue -
we don't confer honor and respect for having completed one graduate level
class. We confer honor and respect for getting a Master's, Ph.D., DVM, or
MD. Lot more to it than one class.


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