For those of you familiar with Road To The Horse’s producer, the ultimate cowgirl diva, Tootie Bland, you probably already know she likes to shake things up every year…some new facet to the competition to surprise the audience and keep ’em guessing. Two years ago, she introduced a mystery competitor the night before the event; three years ago she surprised us by including the first RTTH woman—Stacy Westfall; and last year…let’s just say there were quite a few chickens involved in the action.
2009’s RTTH Champion, Richard
Winters greets his colt.
THIS year, it was just announced that the 2010 RTTH Champion will be determined not only by the panel of official judges, but the spectators will also have a vote toward the winner. The audience votes will be combined with the judges’ scores. This year’s competitors include returning 2009 RTTH Champion, Richard Winters, and former competitors Craig Cameron and Ken McNabb.
Road To The Horse owner and producer, Tootie Bland,
at last year’s competition—looking as glamorous as ever.
“The competitor who wins the 2010 event will not only be winning the title, prestige, and honor of being the 2010 World Champion of Colt-Starting, but will also be validated by the opinion of 6,000 horse owners!,” Tootie says.
Hmmmm….we’re intrigued. The press release on this new judging did not specify exactly how the audience will vote, but I expect we’ll learn soon enough.
So, the question is…WHAT do you guys think about this? Will it be a “fairer” way to determine the winner? More objective, or less so? It’s easy to speculate that the individual competitors’ personal fans might be swayed to vote for him regardless of his performance??? Richard Winters quickly makes friends
with his colt during the 2009 RTTH Competition.
Please tell use what you think! Good idea? Bad? We’ll see…
~Alana 🙂
For more information on RTTH, go to HorseandRider.com and type Road To The Horse into the search box. There, you can view commentary and slideshows from past competitions. Or, check out roadtothehorse.com.
