Re: [RC] who is captain of the ship - Barbara McCrary
A good part of my questions are meant
to prod people into thinking about racing and the possible resulting damage to
horses. Part of it is "tongue in cheek". Part of it is playing
"devil's advocate". And part of it is directed to the possibility of some
other way to conduct endurance rides, since most people agree that speed is a
"killer". I'm not even sure whether I even like the idea myself, but I
thought I would throw it out there for people to contemplate. Maybe
it will get people to thinking about other possibilities.
I'm sitting here trying to honestly
imagine what a ride like that would be like. If we didn't award speed,
what would we award? Best Conditon?
Ok, so 50 or 60 riders get together to go
for a looong trail ride. You gather at the starting line and everyone
moseys out of camp. Some people want to walk, some want to trot and a
few might even want to canter, so you start spreading out along the
trail. Ride all day with no pressure. Finish the ride and stand
for Best Condition (everyone would get to stand for it, since placings
wouldn't determine anything). The speed element would have to be taken
out of it, too, so the only things that would count are horse condition and
rider weight (as a heavy-weight rider myself - woohoo!). Since horse
condition is at least partially related to how fast you rode, we would have a
30-way tie for Turtle award!
Now, since the only challenge left is
against the trail (certainly not other riders and not against your personal
best time, etc), what do you want to bet that the ride managers will start
saying, well lets make the trail a REAL challenge. Lets put those riders
up over Mt. Baldy and through the glaciers, that'll be a real test. (Been
there, done that...don't get me started about the 50 mile ride that the winner
took over 9 1/2 hrs).
Also, since the ride vets will have a hell
of a time judging 50 or 60 horses at the end and determining BC, we would need
to evolve a complicated point system to assign values to each parameter judged
all through the ride, so we wouldn't have 10-way ties on BC. (The more
points possible, the less chance of ties). The vets wouldn't have to do
as much vetting, but they'd have to do a lot more "judging". Of course,
there would be a lot of "Well, the reason I didn't win is that judge(vet)
doesn't like me".
Since I am a mid-pack or back-of-the-pack
rider, I'm not automatically against this, just that I'm not sure what
the allure would be to get me to drive hundreds of miles, spents thousands of
$, to do group trail rides. If this was what would draw us, then why
aren't we doing NATRC or Chief Joseph trail rides which are readily
available?
Its just that there is something really
special about cruising along thinking you are 15th and finding out you were
really 9th! Or that you were 45th out of 90 - on that particular day,
you and your horse performed better than 45 others. And having
experienced show and NATRC, that was the thing that drew me to this sport
- the fact that you are competing against the clock! There's not shades
of gray, no "he didn't like me", just your performance measured by an
impartial clock.
Barb McGann, AERC #840
-----Original Message----- From:
ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Barbara
McCrary Sent: Thursday, October 30, 2003 12:16 PM To:
Howard Bramhall; ridecamp Subject: Re: [RC] who is captain of the
ship
If we didn't award speed, would
the problems go away? What would happen if we only went out to ride
for the pleasure, the experience, and the adventure? What would happen
if AERC did not recognize speed? Would everyone quite the sport?
