ridecamp@endurance.net: Ride Time vs Hold Times

Ride Time vs Hold Times

Randy H Eiland (renegade12@juno.com)
Mon, 8 Sep 1997 14:06:57 -0700

In a response to Diane, I think the point of Ride Time vs Hold Time was
missed. As an example, we were at a ride about a week ago that is a very,
very tough 50 (probably more than 50 but that is another matter that I
will address next year when resanctioning is requested). This ride had
over 2 1/2 hours of hold time, which equates to about 9 1/2 hours of
a"real" ride time. Needless to say, some riders who are middle of the
pack to end of the pack riders were not able to complete in the time
allowed. If this ride had 1 1/2 hours of hold times, these folks would
have completed.

My one day rides near El Paso are very, very easy and I have two Vet
Checks with between 50 minutes and one hour and five minutes of Hold
Times, depending on which trails I use..this equates to 11 hours and 10
minutes and ten hours and fifty-five minutes of real ride time to
complete. What is fair between these two situations?

I suppose the answer is that AERC should have guidelines suggesting
maximum hold times for ride distances.

Back to the answer in ridecamp, unless I misunderstood it, it stated that
if a horse could not finish 50 miles in 12 hours then it did not deserve
to finish , and this is not really the case as the examples listed above
prove. Long hold times are similar to "cutoff times"....both are planned
with the welfare of the horse in mind, but the actual effect is to cause
some horse/rider teams to push much harder than they should because the
Ride Management has arbitrarily affected the "ride time" allowed, or lack
thereof.

Randy Eiland

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