Goat racing? You have got to be kidding!

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Last Updated: Saturday, 08 December 2012 15:45

Goat racing is here to stay, judging by the enthusiastic response to the inaugural GOanna event at South Turramurra on Sunday.  Over 50 orienteers turned up to the first GOanna, brainchild of ONSW Marketing Officer Ian Jessup, and they were a little unsure what to expect.   What they got was mostly line course, with a small section of scatter course at some stage, some forked controls, the option to skip a control or controls, a mass start - and permission to 'follow', a practice otherwise discouraged in our sport. So tactics would have to be made up on the run, along with switching modes and trying to work out which control(s) to skip. (It was so complex to program that the SI computer crashed midweek trying to calculate the number of permutations!)

The comfort zone of a standard score or line course was thrown out the window as runners were confronted with much mental arithmetic as well as keeping an eye on their rivals. And so it proved, with O luminaries Michael Burton and Glenn Horrocks among the casualties to DNF. They were among nine of the 26 GOanna entries (9km) to unwittingly spike the wrong control midway through their course. This was perhaps a sneaky piece of course setting, but they paid the price for not checking their clue sheet. Winner Eric Morris of Bennelong Northside showed a clean pair of heels and an astute mind: not only did he run 8.1km in a tad over 40 minutes in testing terrain, but he had a strong feeling upon coming out of what he thought was #10a at a track junction (and actually was #1 from the GeckO) that the control was too close to the main track. He went back to check and sure enough found it was the wrong control. 20m farther up the track indeed was #10a. What great orienteering and presence of mind! With minimal fuss Eric completed his course and took home the Xmas pudding kindly donated by the NSW junior squad, beating his brother Richard by three minutes.

On the 6km DraGOn course, all 9 entrants completed the course. First home was Ken Jacobson of Garingal in 45m38s. Only 15 seconds separated second from fourth, with WHO's Ian Miller deadheating with Garingal's Tim Cox for third - bringing back memories of Bonecrusher and Our Waverley Star !
And on the 4km GeckO (dropping the tail off the shorter courses), it was a different Cox - Mel from BN - who got the pudding in a time of 28m40s. All that time spent on Letters and Numbers clearly paid off as Mel pipped GO's NSW rookie junior Alex Kennedy by 1m20s.

With a staggered start for the 3 courses, the idea was that all the runners would converge near where the GeckO (shortest course) entered the bush. That did not quite happen as the GOanna big guns flew around the magnificent bush of the Browns Waterhole map in Lane Cove National Park, meaning the later (and often slower) starters were playing cat rather than mouse. My apologies for underestimating our elites !
The event was an experiment to (1) see if there is scope for an annual event unlike any other on the ONSW calendar, (2) keep the runners under constant decision-making pressure and (3) have a bit more 'fun' than might be evident in our usual events.
There was much animated discussion and post-race analysis, all of it curious and good-natured. "Which controls did you skip?", "In which order did you do the box?", "How did you go from the box to #8?" "That was great, a lot of fun."

A huge thank you must go to:
* Ross Duker for doing SI and helping put out controls on Saturday evening in extreme heat and humidity
* Steve Ryan for also putting out controls and sweeping up most of them behind the last runner on Sunday
* Dave Stitt for driving Steve around on Sunday
* Bev Johnson for looking after rego
* Barb Dawson for organising the prizes
* everyone who entered for having a go at something different and making it a rewarding event organising experience.
The results, splits and courses are on the Garingal results page http://garingal.com.au/index.php/results?task=view&id=346

Thanks to Ian Jessup for this report - and a fantastic new event!