Re: I feel welcome now....;-)

[K S Swigart <katswig@deltanet.com>]

On Wed, 23 Sep 1998, Jude Hall wrote:

> I would love to have the option of trying an elevator
> ride for my first 50 - having the reassurance of a 
> veterinarian that my horse was OK to go on would
> probably erase a lot of the mental thing - 

Almost every ride is an elevator ride (some more conveniently than
others). You can enter the 50, and if, after riding 25 miles (or something
there abouts depending on where the vet checks are) you decide that your
and/or your horse is not ready to go on...you can stop there. IT will even
be automatic that the vets will check your horse to determine if it is
"fit to continue."

If you plan your first 50 for when the ride loops back to base camp for
the "lunch break" it is much easier, since you will already be back at
your rig.

If you do decide to stop halfway through the ride, the only difference
between that and a true "elevator" ride is that you won't get the t-shirt
and the official "mileage" for doing an LD.  The horse doesn't care about
this, and in the overall scheme of things, I can't see how it would matter
all that much to anybody.

This can also work for 50s and 100s (if both are offered at the same
ride).  Enter the 100, plan to finish it, and if you don't .... pull your
horse before the finish.

kat
Orange County, Calif.

p.s.  There are a very few rides where this is NOT possible, where, in
fact, after you start down the trail you are pretty much committed to
going the whole distance.