Untacked

26 w i n t e r 2 014 U n tac k e d one of the hot topics at this year's u.s. eventing Association Annual meeting is a rule change proposal that would increase the pace required to meet optimum time on cross-country at beginner novice through training levels. e reason for these changes? "it has been observed that horses moving forward at a reasonable pace for these levels have either had to slow down and circle or have gained speed faults." Whether the new speeds make it into the rulebook or not, pace is always going to be a topic of serious discussion amongst the eventing crowd. What does it feel like to go novice, training or preliminary speed? how does 350 mpm feel on a pony? on a oroughbred? on a draft cross? in the old days, the only way to learn pace involved quite a bit of hassle and a number of traffic cones. you had to mea- sure out a variety of longish distances between the cones, and then use a stop- watch and trial and error to figure out if you were going the right speed. But today, there's an app for that: speedCheck. i'm not the kind of person who leads the charge when it comes to cutting-edge tech. i'm more the "c l ing-to-my-old-t h ings-because-i- already-understand-how-to-use-them- and-they-work-just-fine-thank-you" type. so while i understood in theory why this app would be incredibly useful, i had my doubts about whether i'd be able to use it effectively. fear not. it's actually super simple. if all you want to do is figure out how fast you're going, then hit start and begin mov- ing. hit stop when you're done. e app tracks your time, actual speed, average speed and distance for every second. no muss, no fuss. But if you're into data, speedCheck also provides a whole lot more informa- tion. graphs of average speed and actual speed are useful if you want to use it over fences. you can see how much you slowed down for the jumps, how fast you went between them, and how that averaged out. (Be aware, though, that you aren't allowed to compete with a cell phone, so consider this an educational tool for schooling only.) under the settings tab you can record and save information by horse (ideal for trainers who are trying to track a condi- tioning schedule for multiple mounts), set a target speed, control the sound and vibration alerts that help you reach that target speed, and change the measurement units. en you can export and share the data if you wish; of course it's got a face- book option. speedCheck is designed specifically for riders, so you can set it to start auto- matically in a certain location. at way you're not tapping at your phone when you want both hands on the reins. you can set an automatic stop location as well, and you can pause the app by tapping anywhere on the screen while it's running in case you need to stop for some reason. Just tap the screen to start again. is is a simple, easy tool for anyone who wants to learn pace, from eventers to jockeys to endurance riders to the merely curious. Available for $11.99 for iPhone or iPod in the iTunes App Store. —Sara Lieser, Managing Editor tEcH rEViEW The SpeedCheck App

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