| Author |
Message |
    
Fiona Powell
| | Posted on Monday, 14 April, 2008 - 5:23 pm: | |
I think I understand the current class structure and also believe we need to let it run, as Barry says, before we change again. The people doing our sport are changing so we must adapt to their needs - see note on three-section marathon... I'm not sure of the premise of your second q.
My tuppence-worth is that, as far as I can see, at club competitions the pre-novice class helps to ease newcomers into the arcane mysteries of our sport and novice classes are very competitive, especially for pony drivers, and open singles are as popular as ever in our area (East Anglia).
There aren't enough intermediate classes to run them at club events (and we are not meant to, as I understand it). One difficulty resulting from the new class structure is that at club events open single pony/horse class drivers might wish to do 9 or 10, 6a, 7a, Novice and Intermediate BHDTA 2008 dressage tests because some wish to start doing novice qualifiers, some are intermediates and some open at nationals and some club drivers just want to do the same old tests...
We want to encourage everyone at club events, but this can make life very hard for the judges and for the scheduler (especially when people change their minds!) and scorer. The test scores are all normalised so, we think, if you are good enough to do the advanced test, you should still be getting a relatively good score compared with someone doing an "easier" test.
I think it would be good for the sport if nationals were more accessible. We're paying £59 for an event at Ashfields (with 85 entries!) compared with £175 for a national and we don't have to drive so far... Many more people would enter national events if they were not so expensive. This is the change that is the most damaging to the future of our sport, IMHO.
What do you think? |
Barry Hilditch
| | Posted on Sunday, 13 April, 2008 - 5:25 pm: | |
Paul,
Competitions Committee are committed to a review at the end of the second year of the new structure.
Barry. |
Paul Phillips
| | Posted on Friday, 11 April, 2008 - 9:54 pm: | |
Could we please have a poll of members on this forum.
Question1, do you understand the new class structure?
Question2 do you think all this change is good for the sport?
Paul |
|