A while back, my daughter's Pony Club was invited to a le TREC competition. Le TREC stands for Techniques de Randonnée Equestre de Compétition or Technical Competition of Pony Trekking. Ever since, le TREC has been on my bucket list of things to try. Le Trec combines elements of dressage, mounted orienteering, trail classes and trail riding. The competition tests the adaptability, skill and knowledge of the rider and the obedience and training of the horse with the goal of developing a pleasurable, well rounded trail horse. Le TREC started in France and is popular in Europe, where I've been told there's a social side to the sport as well.
The organizers had the three phases that make up le TREC set up. The first phase was the Control of Paces. Sawdust marked a lane where the riders had to canter their ponies in a controlled, slow manner, then walk briskly back. A perfect canter and walk could be awarded sixty points, but any break in gait, or going outside of the marked lane meant points would be deducted. You might think this would be easy, but in the strange surroundings, with excited horses and riders all around, it was actually fairly tricky.
The second phase was Obstacles Phase, PTV or Parcours en Terrain Varié. In this phase, obstacles are laid out on the course, and the rider must navigate them, demonstrating their horse's obedience and training. You may be expected to jump small jumps, mount and dismount, demonstrate skills like hoof cleaning, ride under low branches and deal with other obstacles that you'd normally find on trail. I judged at the 'mounting and dismounting' obstacle and had to deduct or award points depending whether the horse stood still for mounting, or the rider let the horse walk off before getting correctly settled into the saddle. Each element was awarded up to ten points. You could lose points for taking too long, being sloppy or dangerous riding. If you're like me, and a chicken over jumps, you could opt to go around them, or any other obstacle you didn't want to tackle. This phase can be up to 5 km (3 miles) in length.
The third phase was a bit different for the Pony Clubbers, since there were a number of young children who wouldn't have been able to read a map properly and might easily have gotten lost. The organizers had this phase, the POR or Parcours d'Orientation et de Régularité, which is basically mounted orienteering, done on foot in groups. Just for fun, they threw in some obstacles like balance beams and tunnels for the kids to do. In a real competition, riders would have been expected to carry some basic equipment like a hoof boot, flashlight, first-aid kit, rain gear and of course, map, compass and pens. There is a time limit, similar to an optimum time in cross country or pace in a competitive trail ride.
Veterinary checkpoints are required to ensure the health of the horses along the way, and riders also have unmanned ticket points where they must 'sign in'. Points are lost for missing checkpoints or tickets or going off route. In a real competition, the length of this phase could be from 12 km (7 miles) to 45 km (28 miles).
The day was very tiring for the riders and ponies, but a lot of fun. Working on the skills required to be competitive in le TREC would be very challenging.
I used to do Trec with my mother about 10 years ago now!
It was so much fun, bet some of the rules have changed since then. I won the junior champion even though there were only about 4 of us under 16 at the time haha.
Defiantly recommend the competition to anyone. You can start off at level 1 which is really easy :)
I used to do Trec with my mother about 10 years ago now!
It was so much fun, bet some of the rules have changed since then. I won the junior champion even though there were only about 4 of us under 16 at the time haha.
Defiantly recommend the competition to anyone. You can start off at level 1 which is really easy :)
My horse is usually beautifully behaved when we tackle this sort of thing out for a ride. In something like this, however, he'd be horrible just to be annoying. It looks like great fun though!
My horse is usually beautifully behaved when we tackle this sort of thing out for a ride. In something like this, however, he'd be horrible just to be annoying. It looks like great fun though!
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