Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

KimFue@xxxxxxx wrote:
>  Why make qualifying difficult if there is no exception made <for> 
> weather conditions or unusual conditions...
>  
> ... making a COC qualifer easy... does take a lot of pressure off...
> It may mean that the pool... are not ALL the cream of the crop but 
> that pool of horses WILL include the cream of the crop.  It gives 
> some leeway to good horses and very good horses that may not be 
> able to qualify on a moderate to difficult course when unforseen 
> circumstances occur.
>  
> ...until exceptions are made to the new COC or until the COC is 
> changed... make the "rule" work to your advantage...create a number
> of courses in which an average horse can finish in 13.20 hours.

I think all the above makes great sense.  The COC 13.20 rule is just an example of 
making a dog jump through hoops... so let's jump... and then select our team based on 
REAL rides.  After all, in the final analysis, the actual WEG ride will be ridden on 
a real course with real weather and footing and whether a horse ever completed 100 
miles in 13.20 hrs will not be one bit relevant.

The COC rule suggests an interesting question:  Do we want 100-mile rides to be 
ENDURANCE or RACING?  The flatter a course, the faster a horse can traverse it so 
running around a one mile track 100 times should yield the fastest times, assuming 
the horses don't die of boredom <grin>.  On the other hand, running a one mile course 
is completely NOT what we in the US consider "Endurance".  Our favorite rides are 
TOUGH rides, TECHNICAL rides, Tevis, OD, Big Horn.  Those are what we aspire to, not 
running around in circles for 7-10 hours.  With the present focus on speed, could it 
be that FEI races will devolve to just that, running around in circles?


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