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Dear All,
I just got onto the computer for the weekend; and saw these
posts., I WAS at the finish line and greeted each horse as I was the
IAHA steward for the Fort Howes ride and let me tell you, that Heather's horse
Red is an awsome creature and was not overridden, he looked great coming accross
the finish line as so did the other top ten finishers, She just had
more horse and her stategy won out!! As I waited till the wee hours
of the night for the rest of my horses (I do not leave till I know where all of
my charges for the day are in and accounted for) some of those looked more tired
than the ones that finished faster. And It comes down to how well are they
conditioned for that distance, course, weather, footing, rider awareness and
luck!! And can remember one ride that I was in, everything just seemed to
click, and for a 50 mile ride we came into the finish line in 3rd place with a
time of 3:18, the winners were 4 min. in front of me and as we did not race in
we were able to come down faster and had a great vet score and ended up with BC
also. So don't feel that these riders are cruel or idiotic till you have
been there and seen it, check with the people that were there before jumping to
conclusions!!
Thank you and hope to see you down the trail!
Carolyn Loedeman AERC #5555
5000+ miles of endurance and CTR
IAHA steward 5 years out of the last 6 national
Ch.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 1:37
PM
Subject: Re: [RC] National IAHA
Championship on TV
I didn't actually see them cross the finish line,
but I did personally sit and watch them do their completion checks and their
BC checks.
I believe the poster was looking at a film that
was aired--who knows how the film was edited.
I do agree that on the whole, they were more
tired than I would like to see, and that's one reason why I personally dislike
having so much riding on any one ride. That said, I will stand by my
statements that winning times in that ballpark are neither "profoundly
idiotic" nor "cruel" provided the horses are ridden to the weather, the
terrain, and to their level of fitness.
Heidi
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 08, 2002 10:06
AM
Subject: Re: [RC] National IAHA
Championship on TV
if the horses had come over the
finish line with any appearance of having something left in the tank, that
would be one thing - but from the original poster, they weren't. Either she
misjudged what she saw or the horses were ridden poorly. Has to be one or
the other.
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