Re: RC: Why don't riders like to be judged? -- Let's get thefacts straight

[Lynn Kinsky <lkinsky@silcom.com>]

>Sounds to me like NATRC doesn't have a consisent set of rules throughout
>the country.  It also seems that endurance riders are endurance riders
>for the very reason that they don't like a big set of rules and
>subjective judging.  From all I have seen a heard, I would conclude that
>NATRAC is a mixture of trail ride and horse show, with a bit of
>conditioning of the horse thrown in.
>
>To each his own.
>
>Truman

In the SE that might well be true -- but we already *have* events here on
the West Coast that fill that niche, called Trail Trials.  Listening to you
all it sounds like you are coming up to judged obstacles every few minutes
(which is indeed the case in a trail trial -- 25 obstacles in 10 miles of
trail  seems par for the course).

In our NATRC rides, we in management  are scrambling to get the vets just
to the three P&Rs and maybe an extra trail check, and I'm doing good if I
can get horsemanship to 4 observations in the course of 20-30 miles of
trail (5-7 hours, counting lunch and P&R stops).  Our riders have most of
their ride time NOT being judged!

And with an average accumulated elevation change of +/- 7000 feet for each
of our trails (and I've already got a 15 mile segment of this year's
Championship Challenge with +/- 5300 feet) these are hardly your standard
trail rides (the Swanton NATRC Ride is often used as the final tune-up
before Tevis, and our Open riders, several of whom are horsemanship judges
-- and vets -- commonly participate in Tevis and other endurance rides.)
The NATRC *rules* are consistent from coast to coast -- but obviously some
areas are "tougher" than others.


Lynn Kinsky (Santa Ynez, CA)
http://www.silcom.com/~lkinsky

Sage Hill Ride:  http://www.silcom.com/~lkinsky/SageHill

Cachuma River Romp:  http://www.silcom.com/~lkinsky/Cachuma

1999 NATRC Championship Challenge:  http://www.silcom.com/~lkinsky/Challenge



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