Mounted search and rescue

["Brian Dix" <BDix@bcidaho.com>]

Hello again

>First, let's imagine this was a USOF meet.  Only the first 3
>of 11 teams finished the course;  the other 8 did not finish
>(DNF) because they did not find all 5 markers.  In a USOF
>meet, a large fraction of DNFs means there was a problem in
>the course design or the meet direction, or something adverse
>happened during the meet such as the weather became violent
>or controls were moved by vandals, windstorm, etc.  What was
>the problem with this course?

Big question several pars - IMO averages 8 - 10 rides a year (Idaho
winter and hunting season limits turn out if we try for more), we
average about 30 riders per ride.  With the large number of riders comes
a wide range of skills, desire, horse conditions.  Horse condition at
the end of a ride has been a topic for our board for several years, as
it is important (side bar - I saw in an earlier post from someone asking
if horse earn points like the riders, Yes they do, year end awards go to
"High Point Team", "High Point Female", "High Point Male", "High Point
Youth" and "High Point Horse" so yes there is added incentive to keep
your horse sound).  The Black canyon ride was only the second ride of
the year, the course had areas with a lot of badger/gopher holes, the
ride manager wanted to emphasize the need to read the map and set up a
higher level course, I believe there were also multi heading shoots,
(one landmark leads to another land mark which then give the compass
heading for one leg of the intersection).  There are some riders that
ride hard and some who walk the course, also the "break" in
"times/markers found" on this ride falls along experience lines/riding
ability/goal for the day".  For riders making the change from short to
long (competitive) some do not set up to find all the markers, due to
ride difficulty, time they have to ride, condition of the horse compared
to terrain...

I wouldn't say there was a problem with this course it was an early ride
and it was setup as a higher level ride, the more experience riders
found all the markers.  IMO has had problems in the past with marker
movement due to a number of reasons, not very often but things happen .
The Black Canyon ride was a clean ride, the markers were all located in
the proper places per map/landmarks.

>The Black Canyon results also note one team was out in the
>field for over 9 hours.  When/how do meet directors decide it
>is time to go out looking for someone?  Also, long durations
>like this, if typical, may be an important contributor to the
>horses' condition at the end.  Looking at other ride results,
>this ride was a little out of the ordinary.  Typical times to
>finish IMO courses are more in the 4-6 hour range.

The 9 hour team was a team that walks the entire course, isn't competing
for year end High point awards and so their goal was not to finish in
the least amount of time.  All the teams that finished in 8+ hours were
out for a leisurely ride and or had taken new riders out with them.

The ride Managers are the ones who "set" a course and as such they have
a good idea the average time to complete the course based on a teams
abilities.  Teams start the course in 15 min intervals, as the course
can be completed in any order each team that completes the race can give
an update of other teams they encountered and where.  The length of time
before we start a search depends on the teams abilities and the
difficulties of the course.  In 20+ years of IMO no one has spent the
nigh out on the course and only once did members start a search and that
was successful within the hour (it was because of that search the
requirement to find marker one before being allowed to complete the rest
of the course arose).


Brian 

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