2008 CA. ADT/HDT Challenge Guide Lines
Organized by Veronica Campbell
Those hosting an ADT/HDT that is part of the 2008 Challenge should follow these guidelines.
1. The Challenge is once again being sponsored by Carriage Driving Essentials and as such the name needs to appear as the first or second line of your entry blank.
2. We encourage you to offer Intermediate as well as Advanced - this only means that you have to offer corresponding dressage tests and gate your obstacles/hazards through gate E. A competitor must drive the equivalent of 4 obstacles but in most cases there are only 2 obstacles set up and the competitor than drives the 2 obstacles twice. So to recap. An ADT consists of a dressage test, obstacles and cones. The organizer determines how and in what order each competitor drives their course.
3. I will once again furnish medals thru third place but this year I am asking the organizers to only award an overall training, preliminary, intermediate and advanced award for the Challenge. This is in keeping with the year end awards and allows more points to be amassed. For example all training be they minis, ponies or horses would be competing against one another as well as singles, pairs or multiples. (Ann McClure awarded her ADT this way in 2007 and it worked fine. Ann also, as an organizer, gave awards for the different divisions such as Single Preliminary, pair etc. This way it encourages everyone and the awards are left to the discretion of the organizer be it ribbons, carrots etc.) Following this idea I will send 4 sets of medals to each ADT/HDT organizer.
4. Once again the point system will determine the overall winner at the end of the year. Every competitor will receive one point for entering and one point for every competitor they place above. Since some competitors were not able to make 3 different venues in 2007; in 2008 a competitor may drive the same venue twice aka Ted Draper's ADT and only have to drive one other event in order to be eligible for the final award. As an example of compiling points: Say there turns out to be 9 ADT/HDT, a competitor could possibly gain 9 points just for entering (and driving) and the points from said competitor's top 3 events would be added to that 9 and this would be their final score.
5. This Challenge is set up to be a low-key competition and does not need to be ADS Approved but I urge any organizer to give thought to having it ADS Approved.
6. The organizer/secretary is responsible for getting all the scores and competitors names to me so I can tabulate the points. My address is Veronica Campbell - 1100 Stevely Ave., Long Beach, CA 90815 or email: t.v.campbell@verizon.net
As we saw in 2007 many new and returning drivers took advantage of the state wide Challenge. To date there appears to be 6 verified events and a good chance at 4 more so I am heartened by that. The first of the 2008 series will take place on March 29th.
Celine & Gary Rickards of Carriage Driving Essentials are going to great lengths to insure nice year end awards and I would ask that you publicize by announcing this at each ADT and be sure that the info appears prominently on entries. Thank you.
The following dates are already set for the 2008 Challenge: Hopefully having an ADT/HDT monthly starting with March will allow plenty of venues for all drivers up and down the state.
March 29th - NCDC hosts at Nelson Ranch near Sacramento -contact email: ehultgren@aol.com
April 5-6 - ADT - Carol Dahlberg's Smoketree Morgans Ranch near Victorville -760-949-1695
June 14-15 HDT (tentative) - Copper Meadows - Ramona
June 28 - ADT Arroyo Grande - Ann McClure email makomc@msn.com
July 20 - Santa Rosa - Ted Draper 707-546-2568
Sept. 14 - Santa Rosa - Ted Draper 797-546-2568