Limited Distance?

["Liz Carpenter" <cvsec@south-01.novell.leeds.ac.uk>]

Hi,

This subject is HOT for sure!! <g>

Can one of you explain to me why you have 
placings at all in these rides?

If you had some kind of realistic min/max ride 
time (or varying speed classes as in Scotland) 
and then awards (per ride) based on the final vet 
scores (and maybe sepearated for differing 
speed classes?) then there'd be something to aim 
at for everybody doing <50 miles, but no 
incentive to actually race? 

I dunno, it just seems odd to have placings for 
such short distances.

We only have 1 ride over here which gives 
placings for such a short distance and that 
is The Arab Horse Society Marathon which I 
believe is around 26 miles. These people go hell 
for leather on a basically flat, fast course! 
When they introduced (in the interests of safety) 
a half-way vetcheck you wouldn't believe the 
number of eliminations, etc which occurred and 
how difficult it was for many of them to get 
their horse to pass criteria (after 13 miles!). 
Just goes to show.

On the UK list we are discussing our min/max ride 
times for 'our LD rides' or 'qualifiers/finals' 
as we call them. Our maximum ride times are still 
quite fast when compared to yours in the US. 
(around 4 hours for 25, as compared to 6 
hours for you guys.....7 hours or so for 50 
miles, etc). I am hoping that these max ride 
times will be extended in the UK as I believe 
that the horses and the sport will benefit from a 
more American perspective on the ride times. If 
you want to be a top competitor you could still 
finish fast if you wished to, but the fast 
finishes (even for the last person home) for 50s, 
etc are putting a lot of people off them over 
here and as a fast 50 is part of the qualifiers 
for progressing further we end up with only a 
handful of people actually competing in 100s. We 
have *so few* 100 mile horses and riders.....not 
good.

Liz and Basil The Nag
-- 



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Dr E Carpenter
Institute for Cardiovascular Research
The University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
+ 44 (0113) 2334169/2334803 (voice/fax)
+ 44 (0498) 783129 (mobile)
e.carpenter@leeds.ac.uk
http://www.netlink.co.uk/~snaffle/rogues/scun1.gif
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