Two Legs V Four: New Central Otago Race faces runners against Riders

The runners and runners prove the only course of fools and horses before the race on Saturday at the Maniotooto.
Photo: Supplied/Steve tripp

A Central Otago race is facing two legs against four, since runners and horsy passengers address a 40 -kilometer course through Maniototo.

What began as an idea thrown in a pub has become the inauguration of the inaugural race of fools and horses, which takes place on Saturday.

The Ultra-Charathon broker, Margie Campbell, expects Central Otago to appear the heat of the race, when more than 50 runners will face 26 horses and riders.

This is because humans sweat better than horses and can carry their own water and drink to the race.

“I really hope that runners try that horses are a hot day because … humans are the most efficient runners on the planet because we can sweat so we can cool, so I really wait a really warm day,” he said.

To prepare for the race, Campbell has been busy addressing the hills around Dunedin and running during the heat of the day.

“But it is difficult to live in Dunedin, to train to acclimatize to that type of temperatures, particularly the summer we have just had, it was really not so warm. So it will be interesting to see how everyone endures,” he said.

One thing was to grow around the horses, but another very distinctive contemplate the races against them.

“I am sure that these on Saturday will be much faster than the two with which I grew up. Yes, it is just a novel idea and I think only support the community,” said Campbell.

The rider Lucy Falconer was anxious to try something new.

“No, I have never done something like this in my life. I mainly do events and showjumping, so this is not all ‘, but I am very excited to try it,” he said.

She and her Horse Ted have been training for a few weeks, and said he has handled everything very well.

“We compete a lot, so it is already very fit for the shows we have been doing and loves this kind of thing and has a great heart and a very good work ethics, so I know he will love him,” he said.

As a Maniototo local, he couldn’t wait for more people to appreciate the impressive country.

The horse riders help examine the course of the inaugural, only the fools and horses of the race in the Maniotooto.
Photo: Supplied/Steve tripp

The race rules require the runners shouting ‘Tally -ho’ before passing a corridor, and should only go to the right.

Only the co -organizer of the Fools and Horses race, Steve Tripp, said that the idea began when one of his coorganizers appeared in the Wedderburn tavern and spoke with the local publican while traveling through the central path of Otago with his family.

“When he listened to what he does: organizing races, he said: ‘Oh, I always wanted to make a kind of race with horses and runners as a relay, so we threw that idea when he returned to Dunedin, and really thought, a race with horses and runners at the same time of the Welsh race model would be a better logistically better option,” Tripp said.

Man versus horses has been running in Wales since 1980, but the chances have been in favor of the horse.

Only four runners have taken the title in the history of the event, but Tripp was sitting in the fence on how many legs the winning potential in the Maniototo would have.

“Compared to the Welsh race, we probably have between 15 and 20 warmer degrees with less rain, but that makes the surfaces firmer, which is easier for horses to continue. It is less technical, less mud, less swampy. We have less climbs in our career so that it is easier for horses. However, it will be hot and that is not good for horses. The runners can continue,” he said.

The 40 -kilometer course will take corridors and riders in the hills, through the pastures of the farm, along a historical water race that used to supply water for the gold fields near Naseby and through the silver birch forest.

The runners will begin at 9 am, followed by the passengers of the horses 15 minutes later, but Tripp said that it was only to separate them at the beginning and that it would be removed from their time at the end.

There will be help stations and a mandatory veterinary verification to half.

Organizing careers helped develop a sense of community, he said.

“This in particular is quite surprising because it is gathering rural and urban communities, as well as passengers and horsepower, and different communities within those groups, so it is about people gathering and, I suppose, they find common land despite the fact that from distance they could look so different,” he said.

The spectators could observe the start and end of the race or opt for the $ 20 lunch package and encourage competitors at the midpoint at the top of the laws with a barbecue, he said.

Tripp hoped that only fools and horses would become an annual event.

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