Re: Endurance as a team sport

[Sue Brown <sbrown@wamedes.com>]

At 09:30 PM 9/13/00 -0400, Sbeseda@aol.com wrote:

>My first try at the details would be 4 or 3 riders per team over a season.
>A team must declare and enter at least 3 races as a team to qualify 
>as a team. The mileage earned by each team member count towards 
>individual miles and team miles. 
>
>In each race, the first 3 riders of a team to finish count towards the 
>team's placing. 
>
>I like this one: Once a team has qualified the entry fee for the team
>would be less than the total of the rider's entry fee as individuals.
>
>Scott
>

PNER works it so that there are a maximum of 15 people (juniors count as
one position the same as seniors) per team.  I believe we started our new
team this year with about 10 riders.  After a certain date (June something)
no more riders can be added and if there are any riders that haven't done a
ride up to that time, they can be dropped and new riders can be added in
their place.  The normal request per team is that each member agree to ride
3 rides per season...more the better, however.  (We didn't quite make it
with some of our riders this year -- 1 had no rides, 1 had 1 ride, and 2
had 2 rides...the rest had 3 or more...the pains of being a new team!)  15
may sound like a lot of people per team, but getting enough riders at each
ride in order to get points for a distance is the toughest part...at least
for our new team with our limited number of riders this year.  Hopefully
next year we'll have a full roster and more riders riding longer distances
so that we can get more points.  

The way the points accumulation works is that 3 riders have to complete a
distance (all 3 in the same distance) in order to get points and, if there
are more than 3 riding in any one distance, the top 3 riders are counted.
Any number of distances can be ridden...ie 3 in a 25, 3 in a 50, 3 in a 75,
3 in a 100...so if you have a wide variety of riders at one ride, you could
rack up quite a few points.  Coming in Top 10 counts for extra points
depending on the position.  Outside of the Top 10, points are counted
pretty much as 1 point per mile.  Juniors count the same as adults for points.

The points range at the end of the season is pretty broad.  The top couple
or so teams have several thousand points, the bottom teams have a few
hundred.  We have two teams that run pretty close to the top (currently
6900+ and 7300+) and it's a race to the finish at the end of the season to
see who will win the honors of #1 Team.

It's not exactly like having a team in FEI competition with only 4
members...but the way it's set up, if you are a member of PNER and you want
to be on a team, there's probably a team that has an opening.  PNER
currently has 18 teams.  Altho we're not competitive this year points-wise,
we've had a lot of fun being a team.  It creates a certain camaraderie that
you don't get otherwise...and we're already looking forward to next year
and planning our rides to better our points over this year.  We will have
more riders doing longer distances so I'm very confident that we'll improve
our position in 2001.

Sue (currently team leader with David LeBlanc for the Tree Frogs)

sbrown@wamedes.com
Tyee Farm
Marysville, Wa.
ARICP Certified Riding Instructor
Recreational Riding II, Dressage I