Re: RC: I'm a insecure Newbie

["Glenda R. Snodgrass" <grs@TheNetEffect.com>]

> I will be showing up (I think) at my first ride in early April, alone.  
> I will have the wrong tack, I will not have a clue what I am doing and 
> look totally out of place with all the athletes.  After all this talk on 
> Ridecamp I am wondering if I an just kidding myself and should stay 
> home.  

Don't stay home!  Good heavens, you'll not get a finer welcome anywhere in
the horse world than at an endurance ride, especially if you let everyone
around you know that you are a newbie.

I did my first LD less than 3 years after learning to ride for the first
time -- at age 30 and 30 lbs overweight.  (and I hope no one will be
offended at this remark, but let me tell you, a typical ridecamp does
*not* look anything like a college sports gathering -- plenty of us are a
bit overweight and lots and lots of endurance riders are middle-aged and
older, one of the many great things about this sport).

I had been on Ridecamp about 6 months or else I would never have had the
courage to try it myself, not knowing anyone in the sport.  I had the
wrong saddle (didn't know it at the time, but learned later that it didn't
fit my horse's back) and all leather tack <horrors!>, not one inch of
biothane did I own and very little nylon.  I didn't have any buckets
except 2 (one for feed, one for water) and not a sponge in sight, no crew
bags, hay bags, no syringes, no electrolytes.  Lakota wasn't getting any
supplements and didn't eat beet pulp (I fed him 4 lbs of sweetfeed only 3
hours before riding the 25!)  I had no camping gear whatsoever, froze my
patooty off in the back of my truck, heated water for my coffee on a
fellow Ridecamper's propane stove (didn't have one of those either) ...
but you know what?  Lakota and I both had a blast, finished dead last in
about 4 hours with him still stomping & rarin' to go some more (personally
I was *finished*) and I was hooked.  Wouldn't trade it for anything.

(of course the upside to having no gear is that packing & loading goes
much faster! teeheehee)

So let the Ridecampers know which ride you're going to so they can watch
out for you (get a bandana from Steph and tie it to your truck antenna in
camp) and tell the RM that it's your first ride, and tell the P&R folks
when you come in, and tell the Vet when he checks your horse, and you will
do just fine and hopefully have fun too.

Glenda & Lakota 
Mobile, AL
AERC # M18819 & H27310
SE Region


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