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NATIONAL ENDURANCE HORSE COMPETITIONS, AMBERLEY EASTER 2002.
The North Canterbury Amateur Radio Club was asked if it could
assist with communications from several check points back to
the control centre at Amberley Domain for this event. Of
course what Club in the country would not agree to consider
this request. It proved to be quite an interesting
event. Just for starters the first course started at 1am
on Good Friday morning, was 160km long and had a ‘ride time’
of 16hrs plus rest times of 40mins x 4. – a final finish time
of up to 7pm!!!! The course consisted of 5 ‘loops’. The
first two were in fact twice round the same 39km loop which
left Amberley Domain and went up a ridge into the Mt Grey
Forest, along the forestry road and then back down another lot
of farm paddocks back to the starting point, past check point
no.3.There the horses had to pass a ‘vet check’ which
included having a heart rate of no more than 64beats per
minute.
Competitors then had a compulsory rest period of
40 minutes before starting the next loop. There were
check points at the middle point of each loop, and one each
about 5km from the Domain heading out for loops 1, 2, 4
and 5 (one common check point) and loop 3. The mid point
of loops 4 and 5 also shared their check point, making a total
of 5 outstations plus the control point at the Domain.
Loop 3 took the same route out as was used for the
return of loops 1 and 2. It was 30kms but was very hilly
with riders going across the hillside, up and down the valleys
and ridges instead of up a ridge. Fortunately for most
riders it was daylight by the time they started on the
difficult part of this loop.
Loop 4 was a gradual climb
up a ridge and then across and back to base in 30km and Loop 5
was similar but only 22km. OM Ron, ZL3MQ and I were on
control 1. This meant we were on duty from 12:45am until all
the horses went past us on loop 2 about 5am and then there was
nothing until approx 8:30am on loop 4. Because of this
we had parked our camper on site and so were able to go back
to bed for a sleep in the interval!! Two of the other
check points also had sleeping accommodation with them which
proved extremely useful – a person did not need to move far to
keep track of progress unless we needed to acknowledge riders
going past.
Being Easter it was full moon. The
course was well marked with the use of dazzle paint, roadside
markers in the paddocks, some of which had ‘glow
sticks’attached, and flashing red lights at one side of all
gateways (some of which were open and others required the
riders to open and shut them) and flashing red lights at both
sides of any hazards. In addition to this all riders had
headlamps to turn on as required. For those check points
which were operational for more than 8hrs we had a second
‘shift’. Saturday’s events were a little different.
They were a couple of courses – one about 60km and the
other 30km, both of which were ridden with the aim of
accomplishing a steady speed of 12km per hr for the 60km and
10kph for the 30kms. Both classes used Loop 3 and the
longer one also did loop 4.
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