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Re: NATRC Swanton ride



Deanna German finishis2win@columbus.rr.com
>We were going down this long stretch of very steep
>shale...loose flat white rock....normally I would get down
>and walk but in NATRC you are not allowed to.  ....  If he
>had put his head down I would have tumbled forward and
>crashed down the hill.  I stopped him and tried to get him
>to step sidewards to get off and he just could not.

>So, I slid my left leg over his neck and hopped down ......
>I could move my arms ok, just very sore to breath and
>so walked him the rest of the way down.

Kimberly, I'm sorry you had a mishap and happy that you were not injured
badly.

I do not ride NATRC, so I don't know the rules, but didn't you  DQ
yourself by leading the horse down the hill? In our CTR rides, we're
required to report any forward motion to the ride management. (Honor
system, but you'll usually be seen by another rider anyway.) Equipment
failure or failure to use equipment that could prevent failure (in this
case a crupper), while unfortunate and can lead to unhappy circumstances,
is not really good enough to justify leading your horse in a CTR. Forward
motion while off the horse can be justified if a spot in the trail becomes
unsafe. Ride management will know if a number of people come in and say,
"hey, that wooden bridge with all the mud on it got really slick after it
started to rain" and will likely rule that it's OK that the rider lead the
horse over it.



>Note, we hardly ever trot downhill single track trails on
>the side of mountains in training rides, but this is
>competition and you do in competition things you don't
>do everyday in training rides.

Hmmmm..... if I don't train for it, I don't do it. I'll take penalties or
DQ myself to keep me and my horse safe.

Ya know, I see this all the time in CTR. Competitors get tunnel vision and
get fixated on  "gotta get there in this amount of time." People take
gambles and do things with their horses that they didn't prepare for.
People will lame up their horses to make time. For God's sakes, take the
time penalties! Go the pace you need to negotiate the trail safely or take
the time to get off and readjust the saddle .... or whatever needs to be
done!.


>What I don't like is your pace is set for you.

The whole idea of CTR is to stress the horses equally and then assess
their condition and compare it to determine placings. Stressing equally =
all horses cover the trail at as close to the same speed as possible.
That's essentially what makes it different from endurance.

I understand why you don't like the point to point time requirements. I
wouldn't like that either. That's too much pace dictation. We're given a
time window (say 4 to 4 1/2 hours), so the riders can go faster during the
cool of the day, then meander during the heat. It still ends up that the
horses are stressed equally because, guess what? Virtually all riders go
faster in the cool of the a.m. and slow down for the second half.

Deanna (Ohio)



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