Re: spongeing at camp

["Joe Long" <jlong@mti.net>]

On Tue, 23 Jun 1998 22:44:26 -0400, "Glenn Foster" <gfoste19@idt.net>
wrote:

>The point of the CTR rules is obviously not to hurt horses.  No more than is that the point
>of endurance riding as I have occasionally heard non-distance riders imply.  The point of
>the CTR rules seems to be "lost in antiquity" somehow.  I believe Louise Riedel posted 
>a while ago that these rides have more than a 25 year history.  I think the point is to test all 
>horses the same way and under the same conditions, and to make it sort of like "riding cavalry"
>in an endurance ride.  These CTR's just aren't supposed to be a contest in who has the most
>crew people or biggest fleet of trucks to keep the horse going faster.  In stead of trucking in
>water for cooling horses, you are supposed to keep them cool under the "natural conditions"
>of the ride.  You are damned well still responsible, as the rider, to not hurt your horse.  If you
>cant make the time window under the prevailing conditions ... you just dont make the window.

Such artificial barriers may not be intended to hurt horses, but if
they are continued in conditions that make them dangerous, that can be
the result.  What is more important, providing a stress for scoring or
allowing riders the means to protect their horses from overheating or
dehydration?

This is always something that has disturbed me about many CTR rules.
On the one hand the objective is supposed to be good horsemanship, but
at the same time many techniques of good horsemanship are disallowed
to facilitate judging.

-- 

Joe Long
jlong@mti.net
Business Page  http://www.mti.net
Personal Page  http://www.rnbw.com