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I agree with Joe (and others) here and it's not because I'm a LW or FW
looking to protect an advantage. I'm a HW and though I don't "compete",
just complete (hopefully), someday I'd like to race for Top Ten, too.
Although Carl's proposal of Class A through C races sounds interesting
for establishing a Nat'l Champion, I think there's a big difference
between loading a horse with live, dynamic weight that can shift and
balance and GET OFF to run on occasion vs. dead weight that doesn't
move. So a horse carrying a 200 lb rider, IMO, is NOT evenly matched
against a 150 lb rider carrying 50 lb of lead weight.
I also agree that many of the good (smaller) horses out there would
break down if forced to carry significant additional weight---and is
THAT worth it? Personally, I don't think so. Without going back to
comparing flat-track and endurance, I think everyone would agree that
too much weight (along with speed) has been one of the causative factors
in many TBs having catastrophic breakdowns. I would NEVER want that to
become commonplace in endurance just so HW riders could be on a "level"
playing field with LWs. And I still disagree that it is such a
cut-and-dried disadvantage, at least over Tevis-type trails (though I
will concede that the scenario may be vastly different over different
terrain). If it were, as Julie Suhr pointed out, there wouldn't have
been so many successful HW riders---and NOT just over the Tevis trail!
Personally, I thought part of the whole attraction of endurance is that
you don't have to be rich, or have a trainer, or a $50,000 horse to be
successful---AND you don't have to be a 100-lb flyweight, either. I
kinda thought it was a sport where there was someplace for everyone,
recognition for lots of categories, and where everyone has to work with
what they have. If it wasn't possible to overcome a weight advantage
through strategy and better conditioning and a better horse, then NO HWs
would win, EVER. Since they do, and almost always are right up there in
top five or ten, why not just ride your best and brag that you ARE
spotting 25-30 lbs, rather than complain that "it's not fair" and
campaign for a program that would break smaller horses down, JUST so you
can compete on an equal weight basis? Doesn't seem right, but then as I
said, I'm not a competitor, so maybe life is different up there in the
rareified air of Racing.
Now that I think about it, does this also mean that riders who can't run
alongside their horse should make all the runners stop running so the
field is leveled? How about restricting the folks with lots of crew so
the no-crew person isn't disadvantaged, or maybe we could have
categories for people that have RVs, because they probably got a better
night's sleep and hotter coffee than the folks in tents. How 'bout
handicapping based on how well the saddle fits, or maybe some allowances
for parents that are also having to worry about what Junior is up to
back at camp?
Or, how 'bout we just get on the damn horse and ride and do the best we
can with what we have? Why is this such a naive idea?
Before I climb down off the soapbox (and sorry for staying up here so
long), someone told me once about Jim Bumgardner---dunno if it's really
true, it sounded like it was. Jim coaches cross-country out in
Ridgecrest and at the beginning of the year, points all these young,
skinny, frisky kids at the top of a long, slow graded hill they have out
there and off they go. Of course, all these kids go bounding off at top
speed, shouting back rude comments about fat and over-the-hill, while
Jim is chugging along behind (if you haven't seen him, Jim is BIG---I
think his horse carried 286 lbs. when he did Tevis). About halfway up
this long hill, the kids are dying and falling all over the place, and
Jim just putters right on past, and guess who makes it to the top of the
hill first.
As usual, just my .02. Your mileage may vary.
Susan
Obnoxious and loud-mouthed as always.
> On Sun, 21 Sep 1997 00:29:17 -0700, "Linda S. Flemmer"
> <bluwolf@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> >I'm not sure that I like Carl's idea of handicapping for endurance
> >riding at large at all, but I do believe that the equine athlete will
> >perform to the heights to which he is trained. I would like to see some
> >of the top runners train to a certain minimum weight & compete head to
> >head, though. Sounds like it would be very interesting.
>
> Neither do I. There have been numerous handicapping systems proposed
> over the years, including staggering starting times based on weight,
> and I've opposed them all. Unlike ractracks, endurance rides have far
> too many variables to implement a fair handicapping system, and they
> all have too much complexity.
>
> I think we have too many weight divisions now -- I believe we were
> better off with three.
>
> --
>
> Joe Long
> jlong@mti.net
> Business Page http://www.mti.net
> Personal Page http://www.rnbw.com
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