TREC: Italy team has been selected

With the World Cup coming up in Segovia, Spain, Italy have released their team for the TREC.
Recently competitions for the TREC discipline have been taking place in Reggio Emilia at the Stradello Hippodrome in the Regional Trophy, won by Lazio. Emilia Romagna finished second and Tuscany third.
After the event, Alessio Sauroni spoke about the weather conditions and about the team that has been chosen for Spain. He said: “The temperatures were just about acceptable but we knew it would be very hot and we had prepared for this and we were always vigilant about the conditions of the horses, especially with the trip to Spain coming up. The athletes selected for the senior team are; Klara Fontanesi, Irina Pockar, Ramona Rodella, Loriano Pandolfi, Andrej Kosmac and Claudio Garavelli while Simone Magagnini, Luca Fabbri, Jonathan Rambaldi and Arianna Laucci will make up the junior team.“
HOW DOES TREC WORK
The anacromyn TREC stands for Technique de randonnée équestre en compétition and the discipline was born in France about 30 years ago. In Italy the TREC is made up of three trials, POR, PPA and PTV. The phases can be run in any order but generally in a 2 day competition the orienteering ride (known as the POR, which is the abbreviation of its full name in French) is run on the first day with the other 2 phases being run on the second day. For the POR, the organiser will set the route and the pace or speed that you should go. After having your kit checked you will go into the Map Room where there will be tables laid out with a master map and a blank map. You then need to copy the route from the master map onto your blank one. There is a time limit but it is generous at level one. When your time is up you will leave the map room with a score card and your marked map, the stewards will tell you what speed you will need to start at and show you what the tickets look like. You then mount up and set off following your map.  This can be a tricky part as sometimes getting yourself oriented is a challenge in itself. Once you get going, you will need to follow the map as accurately as possible at the set speed to gain full marks.
The next phase is usually the MA or Control of Paces which is ridden in a corridor up to 150m long. You have to canter down it as slowly as possible then turn around and walk back as fast as possible without leaving the corridor or breaking pace. Points (out of a maximum of 60) are determined by the time taken for each pace.
The last phase is the PTV which is basically an obstacle or handy pony course with 16 obstacles placed over a field or two if space is available. The PTV course can be up to 5kms long, though it is usually much shorter.
There is a maximum time to do the course in and it is timed from start to finish. Going over the time will incur time penalties.