I'm not even sure exactly how
to title this... I am a very "newbie" to the sport of endurance, this was
my and my horse's first year and we did 135 miles of LD and one 50 with a ride
time of 9:55. All the recent discussion on need for greater education,
changing/lowering the pulse times, ranking riders for placing vs completion,
elimination of points, etc, etc had really had me thinking. Personally, I
feel some of these are very good valid ideas (Dr. Mackay-Smith's proposal) and
that there are some areas that we should absolutely address that have not even
been mentioned recently. The are:
1. Eliminate hold times
from the total allotted ride time. I think requiring a 5 mph minimum pace
would be adequate. That would mean you have 5 hours to complete a 25, 10
for a 50, and 20 for a 100 NOT INCLUDING any time you spend in MANDATED
holds. I have a 5 year old and we normally trained/conditioned at home in
a 7 mph pace which means I was mostly completing rides in the 5 to 7 mph range
for my first couple. 5 mph seems to be very a conservative, manageable
pace that even us non-Arab owners can manage. =) I am always
concerned as to the total hold time that may be required as that means I may
have to go faster on the trail in order to make the currently mandated
cut-offs. Unfortunately the riders (and some ride managers)
don't even know for sure how much the hold time will be until you attend the
ride meeting. I don't like the idea of having to go faster than I trained
for, or pulling from a ride, just because I didn't know how much "trail time" I
would actually have. The 50 I did had 1:15 minutes of hold time, if it
would have been 2:00 I may not have finished at all. By having the hold
times excluded from total allotted time to complete the trail, you would always
know what your minimum pace should be.
2. Exit check of
P&R. I currently do this on my own, at least pulse if not a CRI.
I would like to see mandatory checks of at least pulse, hopefully even a CRI,
required on all participants within 5 minutes of their exit time. For
those short (15 - 30 min checks) I can see this maybe causing some problems but
you could use the pulse the vet recorded during the check if the check was
within 5 minutes of the exit time. You could also easily increase the hold
time by 5 minutes if it wasn't part of the ride time... This
would not HAVE to be done by the vets but could also be
a P&R person and the out-timer would verify the pulse criteria was met
before the horse could leave the check. I'll let the vets and you more
knowledgeable folks debate what a good exit pulse should be but I'm guessing 4
to 6 beats lower per minute than what is required to pulse-in to a check.
The horse would not be allowed to leave the check until the exit criteria was
met and would be pulled if the criteria wasn't met within "blank" number of
minutes.
Just some ideas I've been
tossing around lately....
Crysta & Sinatra (who got
his teeth done today and is feeling MUCH better!)
