While I agree with you, the more time to stop, the
better, ie. finish lines further away from camp, and if it protects
unknowing volunteers, maybe it's necessary. However, I disagree with your
experiences. Just because you've never had a 1000 lb. animal stop on a dime, you
"assume" that it cannot happen. I assure you that it can and does happen,
especially with my horse. Furthermore I invite you to ride my horse, Beau, if
you don't believe me. But you better be a damn good rider, otherwise you'll go
over his head real quick when he stops.: )
A reining horse is not going 20 mph and most spooking horses
are not going 20 mph. A reining horse doesn't have the room to get up to 20
mph. It all my years with horses I've yet to see one that once they got into a
head on head race with another horse wasn't so focused that you could
bring them down in less than about 100 meters.
Or another way to look
at it is at 20 mph a horse will cover almost 10 yards a second. Even if you
could react in a second (which is doubtful) and the horse could react to your
que in a second (which is doubtful) and stop in another second (which is
doubtful) you already covered almost 30 years ( or 3/10 of a football field)
by the time you could stop. Better to have a clear run out at the end - 100
meters would be very nice. I've seen finishes of 100 mile rides where the
horses were so focused that it took almost a quarter mile to bring them back
down.
Go back to the MT incident about 5 years ago and read the
decision of the P&G committee - it was pretty clear.
Truman
Carol wrote:
Truman wrote:
Think about how long it takes to do an emergency stop in a car at 20
mph ( or 1/3 mile per minute which is 587 yards or almost six football
fields). Then at least double or triple that distance for stopping a horse
at 20 mph.
Give me a break, haven't you ever seen a
reining horse or a roping horse stop at a sliding stop? Or better yet, ask
Alice how fast her 1000lb horse can stop when he spooks. The problem is when
the rider can't "control" their horse.
Carol
--
We imitate our
masters only because we are not yet masters ourselves, and only
because in doing so
we learn the truth about what cannot be imitated.
