Re: RC: Alum Creek CTR vs.Fort Valley LD

[Truman Prevatt <tprevatt@mindspring.com>]

There is good news and bad news about "each horse starting out one at a time."
Some inexperienced horses - especially if they are spirited - can get upset with
this format of always a horse a short distance in front of them to go catch.
I've had a few of those myself. You either let them go or end up in a fist fight
with the horse. I know of more than one person who has taken an unplanned
dismount because of this starting procedure and a inexperienced horse.

The other issue is in some CTR organizations, the time gate is pretty fast -
like max time of 4.5 hours for a 25 vs. 6 in an LD. So depending on the training
level of the horse - here I mean training instead of conditioning level, the
mental state of the horse and the conditioning one format might be better than
the other.

Myself, I perfer the very first rides on a new horse to be an LD, starting 20
minutes back - after every one has left and taking as long as it makes sense to
do a nice trail ride with a vet check thrown in.. I also like to get off and
walk either to calm a new horse down or to stretch my legs. That also points me
toward endurance vs. CTR. But to each their own.

Truman

Deanna German wrote:

> Bethany,
>
> Here's the deal: CTR is a fitness contest, you can't have anyone helping
> you, you can't make any forward progress unless you're mounted, you can't
> use anything artificial on your horse (no boots, no ice, no salves, etc.) LD
> is a training distance for endurance (no minumum time and a maximum time of
> 6 hours), you can have crew, you can get off of your horse, etc. Our CTR
> scorecard provides a lot of info that the LD scorecard doesn't which is why
> I like starting with CTR. Also, CTR sends each horse out one at a time. That
> can be a good idea for some horses and riders who want to start and end up
> in all the same number of pieces.
>