Re: RC: Hold times longer...

["Nancy Mitts" <mitts_n@hotmail.com>]

Mike brings up a good point here. If increasing hold times means people have 
to run their horses harder in between checks are we really helping the 
horse???
I won't even get into my feelings about cutoffs times here.
Even easier rides than the Tevis really push conservative riders if they 
have too long holds. Of course, it's all relative. An 1 1/2 hr hold on a 50 
is fine if there's only one. But when there's 3, you just can't spend that 
much time in camp and ride a conservative pace.
When you ask for more holds & longer times, I ask "more than what"?
In a 100 mile ride that has 5-7 holds in it you just can't have an hour at 
each one. But too short a hold & the horse gets no time at all to eat by the 
time they vet through.
It really needs to be decided by the vet & ride manager for each ride, 
considering the trail layout, what they need to use.
I just hate to see more "rules" made to control a few people who override 
their horses (i.e. must be forced to stop their horses long enough to eat) 
at the expense of the majority of us.
Nancy Mitts

>My horse was really hungry in the mid parts of the ride and
>I did not like to pull him away from food when he was so
>clearly hungry.  Two of us were riding together the whole ride
>and had the same problem.

>But during this time we were coming close to the cutoff times
>and I did not want to fight a cutoff problem the whole rest of
>the ride.

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