On Feb 6, 2008, at 1:16 PM, Renee Martin wrote: > Stupid question from a non-competitor: > > When one sees "LD endurance" mentioned, does that refer to Limited > Distance > (as Nancy says she does) or Long Distance (as I had always assumed that > abbreviation meant). > > Also, Nancy, of those folks you mentioned who you know ride strongly > gaited > horses in endurance, what gait do they primarily use on the trail? > Or > maybe, they don't use one gait primarily at all?? Maybe they've > discovered, for a strongly gaited horse, it works to "mix things up" > alternating gaiting with trotting and/or cantering depending on the > terrain?
As someone who used to ride Peruvians in limited Distance AERC and Open Division NATRC (and plan to have a green horse ready to compete by next year), I did a good portion of each ride in the 6 mph flat walk that each had been trained to do, and then an easy paso llano (square 4 beat gait) in the flat parts. (My highest mileage Peruvian in NATRC didn't have a good paso llano, but rather did a fast broken pace called an entrepaso which was quite adequate). The only time I ever cantered (in roughly 2000 miles of NATRC/AERC) was at an LD that appeared to be longer than advertised and we had to haul the last couple of miles to make it in and recover within the time allowed. Trotting was not part of the repertoire except for the in-hand presentation at vet checks. Lynn Kinsky, Santa Ynez, CA http://www.silcom.com/~lkinsky/
