Re: RC: Maryben's Message

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/10/00 6:44:40 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Merryben writes:

<< I could be wrong and often am, but I don't remember LD ever being given 
points for the year end awards.  That was the big deal with the LD committee. 
 They got nothing and were second class citizens and essentially paid the 
bills for no awards. .......mb >>

I'm not sure what year it changed.  But they sure did get points back in the 
70's.  When I started riding, virtually all rides were only one distance--and 
a great many were only 35 or 40.  And then came the great idea to offer 
different distances all the same day--and 25's became pretty standard since 
one could easily do loops and have 25, 50, etc.  I can remember the ride in 
Vale, OR--I think it was the year John Sumerlin was National Champion.  His 
horse was getting a bit iffy, but the win on the 25 would net more points 
than a mere completion on the 50.  I can't remember if John won or not, but I 
think he did.  The winning time on that 25 was 1:09, and I've never seen such 
a uniformly sorry bunch of horses than those front runners.  But because of 
the shorter mileage, if you were running for points, you pretty much had to 
run to win, because the "net" for points wasn't very much if you didn't.  So 
folks were REALLY cut-throat.  At too many rides, the vets were kept so busy 
treating the "short ride" horses that it got pretty frantic.  Since you don't 
get hands on a horse but once in the middle, and the ride times were so fast, 
a great many crashes did not occur until well after the rides.  AERC figured 
it was best to be pro-active and deal with the issue before it drew too much 
attention and got us labeled as a sport that truly abused horses--and the 
idea came about to take the points out of the short rides and eliminate them 
altogether as an AERC entity.  It worked.  They became rides for novices 
trying to learn, people who simply didn't care to ride further, etc.--and 
even though there was still an element of racing, to this day, the winning LD 
is often slower than the winning 50 on the first lap.  Of course, this 
complete excision of the short rides from the "system" also had its 
problems--you named the main one, which is that LD'ers (as they later came to 
be known) felt like they were paying the bills and being treated like second 
class citizens.  Another problem was the concern that the "short" rides would 
not be run to AERC standards if they were not sanctioned.  (Most rides had 
them, and to this day, I don't know of any that DIDN'T run by at least some 
semblance of AERC rules, but whatever.)  So AERC set up the LD program.  This 
gave some credit and recognition to folks who were content to continue to 
ride at what most sports would call a novice level--and indeed, there isn't a 
thing wrong with that and it happens in virtually every horse sport.  And 
certainly it behooves AERC to be involved with the LD rides, for many 
reasons.  There is no shame in being an LD rider, any more than there is any 
shame in doing intro or training level dressage, or any other entry level in 
any other discipline.  However, to go back to awarding LD's the same career 
credit (re points, miles, etc.) is a giant step backward in being able to 
monitor horses and protect those whose riders don't take the responsibility 
to ride to the horse's ability.  (Yes, this IS the rider's responsibility, 
but let's face it--if everyone did that, we wouldn't need ride vets or 
standards for continuing or completion, etc.  Even responsible folks get 
caught up in the heat of competition from time to time...) 

LD is a great thing.  It serves many purposes--it's a stepping stone into the 
sport for some, a "ride intro 101" for young horses that need the 
socialization as part of their training, a way for riders to participate and 
enjoy who for whatever reason (age, infirmity, no time to stay fit for longer 
events, etc.) can't go longer distances, etc.  But there was good reason to 
remove the "short" rides from the points program to begin with, and we would 
be fools to revisit history in that regard.

Heidi