[drivingpairs] rules and "The Book"

Since you asked for my input: Keith has represented it well, and so have 
Sharon, Ken and Helen. This is what I find to be the main problem with non ADS 
events, nobody really knows what the rules and standards will be (and often not 
even the organizer nor his non licensed "officials"), so beginners who go there 
usually as their first low level club event than come home even more 
confused. I am not really jumping on non ADS events, and do understand why low 
level 
club events are done without ADS sanction, but I am VERY much in favor of 
running them by the ADS rules, and if there are any modifications from ADS 
rules, 
then making that very clear to everybody, really not only competitor, but even 
spectators, as we don't know how many of those are folks who want to compete 
next time and when they see things done differently go home with the ideas that 
that's how it's done.  So, I am not in favor of such variations from the rule 
book which create such confusions. 
Often I find, unfortunately, that folks run such events by the seat of their 
pants, just because the don't know the rules themselves, and don't want to 
bother reading the rule book. So they think, hey, as long as I do my own 
"playday" type event, I can do whatever I want, and nobody can call me on being 
outside of the rules, so I'm really safe, and then come up with the wildest 
play 
things, which quite often although seemingly great fun, are not really in the 
best interest of the animals nor drivers involved, nor the sport in general. 
There is no need to re-invent the wheel, the ADS rule book offers a lot of 
variity 
of different competitions, on the CDE end from Arena Driving Trials, through 
Driving Trials to CDE's and in the Pleasure Driving area, they also have all 
kind of different class possibilities. It's all right there, but one needs to 
read it and follow it, which then really is in the best interest of everybody 
involved in the long run, as it educates people to the same standards and is 
usually safe and well proven, and quite often also in the best interest of the 
animals. And I'm sure similar things are true in the breed show area and in the 
draft area. Those folks surely also have their rules and when one goes there 
to compete, one should be familiar with them and follow them.
I believe that home grown and self invented "rules" and games are usually 
counterproductive in the long run, although, again, I will admit, that they 
also 
can be great fun at the time, but really, doing an ADT (or ADS Pleasure 
driving classes) is no more work, not harder on anybody, and I think just as 
much 
fun (but the organizer needs to read the rule book, and that's why it's often 
not done, I think. For the competitors it's not harder, because also on the 
play 
day, they need to be told what the rules are, here at least they can read the 
rules before already at home, and each time they go to one, they know, what 
to expect as it's usually the same again, at least should be. Rules create 
standards and clarity. Not going by them ceates uncertainty and chaos. That's 
how 
I see this (but know that many play day organizers disagree :-)
Hardy 


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