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RE: [RC] I must confess (was: Myths) - David LeBlancKat opined: David LeBlanc said about PNER team awards: The team that won last year did a LOTof LD, mostly because they could put their experienced 50+ mile horses in the LD, come in way up front, and have a very low pull rate. This, to me, is a perfect illustration for why you DON'T want to be offering awards like those that he has described. It, apparently, motivates people to do the chicken-shit thing of "competing below their class." Well, yeah, but when someone turns up with their 100 mile horse in the 50, what are you gonna do? Personally, I'm going to decide not to try and keep up with them. I still don't know why she was in the ride, but when a featherweight on a 100 mile horse passed me on an LD one day, I said hello, and see you in camp. And any rule you could cook up would unfairly mess with people doing LD for completely valid reasons. For example, we had a wreck at the end of 2001, and after a LOT of rehab work, we started in 2002 with an LD ride. AERC already gives a disincentive by not counting LD miles with the rest of them. You should see the lengths that teams go to up here. The winning team has over 5000 points. They go to 15 or so rides per year, often fielding as many as 8 people in 2 distances. There's 15 to a team, and I've seen them put 3+ in 3 distances the same day. Most of them aren't that nuts - most of the teams are just there to provide moral support, put on a nice pot luck afterwards, and have fun. If they can manage having 3+ in a 100, that's when they really clean up, since it's good for 450 points minimum - and the teams that do the longer distances are consistently in the top. Sometimes, it's a really tight race, and a few hundred points picked up from LD could turn the results. I'd thought we should have divisions for the teams so if you can't do more than LD or 50's, you could compete against just those, but changing rules in PNER is worse than changing AERC rules. BTW, the most coveted award we give is for 10+ rides in a row without a pull. That's a toughie - I've only managed that one once, most often because I didn't get to 10 rides. We have a bunch of different awards - some specify 50+. At any rate, what we're doing seems to be working. We have LOTS of really nice, well-run rides, great RM's, plenty of great vets (never seen a ride without a treatment vet available), a growing number of 100's to choose from, and I've watched 2 of my friends go from LD to 100's along with a couple more acquaintances. A friend in the SE told me that I was going to endurance heaven when we moved back in 1999, and after 9 seasons, I think he was right. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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