 |
RE: [RC] Progress - Marlene MossTitle: MessageI don't think I'd
support lowering criteria to 56 in most cases. That gets into the range of
where my horse jumps to just because she sees something 13 miles away, at least
when she is supposed to be recovering. She recovers far faster when she's
chowing and drinking and I quit fussing, so I'd prefer to get on to the real
resting that needs to be done at the hold.
But I do think I'd
support requiring the completion recovery to be done in 30 minutes. Even
though that would have lost me a completion on my first 50. I'd just
bought the horse and rode the ride with her seller so that I'd have a great
mentoring situation and have help determining what the horse could handle.
(I slowed us down plenty, not a chance of me pushing her since I hadn't done a
50!) I believe what held her pulse at the end was issues with her feet,
which we dealt with over the next couple months after getting her home and never
saw a problem again.
Last year I did a 50
that was very, very short. And flat, so it wasn't a compensation for tough
trail. It was also marked with an ATV and they swore it was close.
Anyhow, because of the trail being so short, the map didn't make logical sense
("we couldn't have got to the point of the turn, must keep going") and the usual
crowd of front runners missed the turn. The did an extra 10
or more miles, so were well behind our group. There were about 6 of
us. The trail was easy, we knew exactly what the last couple miles looked
like - perfect packed, but not hard road. We all knew our horses were
still full of it and pretty much said we'd all run for the
win.
Just before the easy
last 2 mile stretch, my husband's horse tripped and rolled over him. They
were both fine, but we sent everyone else on ahead so we'd take it easy. I
was a little bummed, because I'd never been that close to the front, but not
about to hold the others up while we let the horse finish easy. Well, the
other riders did decide to race from almost 2 miles out. One rider was on
a horse in her 20's (and looked it and then some, although she was quite
competent in other aspects).
There was a big
argument at the end because that horse took way more than 30 minutes to recover
and someone thought the rule had already been changed and wanted to take the
first place away from the older horse. The horse did recover within 60,
but looked very, very tired, after riding a very easy 30 miles at around 8mph
average, just because of those last couple miles. I was not
impressed.
BTW, my husband's
horse had no problems other than a scraped nose and knee, immediately went back
into trot and then we did a slow canter to the finish and my horse got BC,
coming in 7 minutes later than the front runners. I wish it had been a
real 50, but it was our first (and only, so far) BC. I still want to do a
race to the finish someday, but I don't want that race to wipe my horse out more
than the rest of the ride. So a 30 minute criteria may prevent some of
that.
Marlene
Marlene Moss
Saddle Fitting - www.KineticEquineAnalysis.com
Boarding/Training - www.LosPinos-CO.com
|