Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Steph Teeter said:

 

> I still believe that horses are built to go

> really fast, or really far, but not both at

> the same time! The heart and muscles can deliver,

> we have seen that proven, but the limbs don't

> hold up over time.

 

Horses, actually, are not built to go really fast, period, if you want the limbs to hold up over time.  The number of mechanical breakdowns in flat track sprint racing is astronomical.

> I would greatly prefer that

> technical trails be the norm for endurance riding,

> at any level. But given the variable geography of

> this planet, that is not always possible. Perhaps

> if flat tracks are all that is available, the

> distance should be shorter?

 

Since shortening the course will just make it so they can go faster without running into metabolic trouble, I have my doubts that this would make for a viable solution to the "limbs don't hold up over time" problem.  The limbs of horses that run at short (1/4 mile) to not quite as short (6-12 furlongs) don't hold up worth a damn.  Flat track racers have blindingly short racing careers; and most of them with any speed "invalid" out.

 

If you add to the technicality of such a course (i.e. hurdles or steeplechasing), this greatly increases the longevity of their careers (although some of this may have to do with the fact that most such horses are geldings and therefore there is no motivation to retire them while they are still winning and some of it may have to do with the fact that many of them become steeplechasers in the first place because they weren't fast enough to win on the flat track but they stayed sound in trying--horses that are prone to lameness from speed don't become steeplechasers in the first place).

 

If there is to be a motivation for adding technicality to the course of endurance races, for me, it would be because technical courses are more of a test of horsemanship and less of a test of just the horses. The disadvantage to technical courses is that they DO allow riders to run their horses at their metabolic maximum with the hope that they don't "find the rock with their name on it" in which case the race goes to the luckiest idiot.

 

The only way to improve the longevity of endurance horses is to reward it.  Changing the layout and venue of the courses won't make a bit of difference.  In fact, if you lay out a course where the prize goes to the luckiest idiot, you are going to have a lot of idiots out there trying to get lucky and a lot more lame horses caused by unlucky idiots.

 

I don't know that it is possible to lay out a course that is so technical such that no idiot could be lucky enough to finish it and win.  And even if you did, that may not stop the idiots from trying.  After all, they are idiots.

 

kat

Orange County, Calif.

:)