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[RC] BC at Desert Gold - katswig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxRichard Sacks said: This fiasco happened at the Desert Gold Ride for sure. The web site for the ride stated "There will also be awards available for overall best condition for both the endurance and the LD rides." I have gone to the Desert Gold entry form to find out whether the availability of AERC LD BC was falsely advertised and this is what I found. The only thing the form states with respect to awards offered is: "There will also be awards available for overall best condition for both the endurance and the LD rides. To be eligible, horses must complete all three days of the same category of ride with the same rider." The entry form does quite clearly state that to be eligible for the award a horse/rider team has to have completed all three days of the ride together (a statement that Mr. Sacks conveniently omitted). Since "overall best condition" in a multi-day ride is not an AERC recognized award (not for any distance), ride management/vets may award this prize if and however they damn well please. The entry form also states "We would like to emphasize the multiday aspect of this event, and will recognize three-day horse/rider pairs for both the endurance and the limited distance events." These are the only statements that the entry form makes with respect to awards or recognition. It makes absolutely no comment with respect to any awards or recognition provided for entrants in the single day event...for any distance, and the AERC rules require only that a completion award be given and that a BC award be available to be given for the endurance distance, but that that BC award need not be awarded based on the AERC's form (or at all if the vets don't think it should be). If LD (or any other riders) thought that this meant that the ride was going to offer the AERC BC for any of the distances (not just the LD) they were mistaken. Since anybody who has read the AERC's rules should know that awards beyond completion are optional (and the entry form also clearly states that anybody not familiar with them should contact the AERC directly). Riders who were unpleasantly surprised by the awards or lack thereof at the Desert Gold ride have nobody to blame but themselves. For those riders who do not like the awards presented by a particular ride manager (whatever the distance or the accomplishment that they think is going unheralded), I suggest that they vote with their feet and stop attending those rides, or that they inform the ride manager that that is what they will do unless ride management changes its award structure. Then, everybody at the ride will be happy since the people who wouldn't be happy didn't show up. If these ride managers then find that they are lacking entries, then they can decide if they want to do something about it to do what it takes to make the unhappy people happy so they WILL show up. However, these unhappy people should be careful about attempting to get the AERC to force ride management to report placings and use the AERC BC form for their LD rides, since the outcome might be for these ride managers to stop putting on AERC LD rides altogether, which would probably make everybody unhappy instead. The only reason any LD rider could possibly have for wanting the AERC to force all ride managers to offer AERC BC is that they want to make everybody unhappy (rather than just being unhappy themselves). Possibly because "misery loves company????" kat Orange County, Calif. -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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