Re: [RC] Relative Newbie on LD and Endurance - Truman Prevatt
My typical is to start a horse using CTR (25 mile events mostly) and LD
- progressing from LD to CTR since the CTR pace in FL is faster than
the LD pace. The LD gets them used to being on the trail with a lot of
other horses and the base camp and all the commotion. The CTR teaches
them pacing - it teaches them what a 6.2 mph an hour pace is like and
how to do one. After a good base - then on to longer endurance rides.
However, I have often taken an 100 mile endurance horse and gone back
to a CTR just because one was scheduled on a weekend I could make it. I
remember in 1996 when a friend and I were out for the ROC - which we
finished - she took her horse in an LD two weeks later. I think she
won.
I see much to do about nothing over all this nonsense over difference.
In reality I find it no more difficult getting the logistics in hand
for a 50 than a 25. If there are out checks then the logistics are more
difficult but that's true independent of distance. Attention to detail
comes with experience not necessarily distance of the ride. The real
difference between horses doesn't happen at the 25 to 50 threshold or
even the 50 to 75 threshold. It happens between 75 and 100 miles and
the stats pretty much point to that.
As far as doing 25's on a horse and then having trouble moving up to
longer rides. I find it is more of a matter of the number of times one
has to leave camp than distance. If you have a 50 with all checks in
camp - you leave camp 3 times that can sure get boring. If you have a
50 mile loop you leave and when you return you are done. Or if you have
a 25 mile loop you only leave camp twice. I've found with the two
horses we have ridden endurance over the past 20 years if the fewer
number of times they leave camp the more forward, the more energy, etc.
When I finally get around to starting a new horse, it will be first
some slow LD's followed by some CTR's - there is no better way to teach
a horse to pace - the first year and then working up to 50 and then if
I feel like it a 100 or two. However, with the trend in 100's that "all
checks are in camp" I really have little interest in leaving camp 7
times. So I expect if I do a 100 in the future it will be the Big Horn
or OD.
Truman
-- "There is always a well-known solution to every human
problem--neat, plausible, and wrong
"There is always a well-known solution to every
human
problem--neat, plausible, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
