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I qualified last year to ride in the 50 mile Nationals, but I didn’t consider the ride to be important enough to be hauling across the Nation to ride with relative newbies like myself. I could do that here locally, thank you. I qualified with only 200 AERC miles to my name and never top 10’ing overall, so you could hardly call me championship material last year.
We have a lot of top riders out West that may have travelled to ride the Nationals if they thought the competition was worth it. With the qualifications as they were last year, it was almost a joke as who you were competing against. It would be interesting to see what the statistics are for the percentage of people who qualify for the Nationals. I don’t think that it’s that there aren’t enough people to qualify, it’s just that a lot of people who are qualified aren’t interested in this particular competition as the qualifications stood. I understand the rationale behind lowering the qualifications to increase the number of riders…. But….
I have already talked to one of my Regional Directors about this. Funny thing, after the last Board Meeting I got my wish in tightening the qualifications for the ride. But I’m pretty sure it just wasn’t me mentioning it in a casual conversation that got the ball rolling – the Board members had to believe it themselves to put it on the table and vote the way they did.
I would like to support the National Championship when I am ready to feel like a Champion. Right now, I’m mostly concerned about getting my horse and myself through competitions without killing ourselves in the process. I feel that someone of true National Champion calibre should already be near the top of their sport, or have good experience to really merit this title.
I’m glad that people had a good time at the Championship last year. Hopefully it will be the same this year.
Sorry. Just can’t support your letter. I hope you can see my viewpoint. Yeah, I wouldn’t have qualified for the Nationals last year with this year’s requirements, but I have no problem living with that fact.
Kathy Mayeda
Mountain View, CA
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