Re: RC: THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

[jlong@mti.net (Joe Long)]

On Tue, 24 Aug 1999 12:37:42 -0700, Lucy Chaplin Trumbull
<elsie@calweb.com> wrote:

>Along those lines, shouldn't the National Championship be a multi-day
>ride?
...
>And wouldn't multi-day be a *true* test of endurance?

That's another problem we'll always have with a National Championship.
A horse/rider team that does well at 100 mile one-day rides may not do
well at mulitidays, and vice-versa.  I don't think you can say that
either format is more a "true test" of endurance than the other --
they're just different.  I personally don't consider a single 50 mile
ride nearly as much of a test of endurance as either the one-day 100
or multi-day, though.

A season-long points system works really well in sports where the same
competitors face each other again and again over the circuit, like in
stock car racing.  It doesn't work well when nearly all of the
competitors compete in their own part of the country and rarely meet
the other teams competing for the top spot.  Look at the perennial
controversy over the college football National Champion; when the #1
and #2 teams never face each other the #2's fans always feel "we wuz
robbed."

-- 

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


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