Re: "Racing"
tina hicks (hickst@puzzler.nichols.com)
Thu, 16 Jan 1997 16:17:57 -0600
At 07:20 PM 1/16/97 UT, Connie Hoge wrote:
Fast - wasn't the word for it, racing - was. I found
>out very quickly that to be at all competitive - it would be impossible to let
>off the pace.
>
>My husband & I went home thinking that it was too bad a "in-between" sport
>didn't exist.
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sounds to me like you want to have your cake and eat it too. You want
something that's faster than CT (I'm assuming you meant comp. trail riding)
but endurance was too fast? Endurance riding **is only as fast as you make
it** - to slow down you either start late (done that), get out of the pack
and wait till they leave (done that), pick another dependable horse and put
your horse's nose in his tail (done that), get off on the trail and hold
your horse as he turns circles around you until eveyone else is out of sight
(done that).
To ride competitively you condition more and at speed and pray alot to the
LuckGod:-). You are right - to be competitive you have to hang in there all
the way - tha's part of riding in the front. If you don't want to or find
out you/your horse can't maintain that pace simply back off that pace and go
back to the drawing bd if that's really where you want to be. Sounds to me
the fault here is not in the sport but <an understandable> surprise at the
pace these at which these things sometimes are ridden.
No one but the rider sets the pace at an endurance ride. It is up to the
half with the brains (that's us 2-leggers) to do what's needed to make sure
our horses are travelling at the pace safest for them.
Tina
hickst@nichols.com