(PRWEB) November 8, 2009 -- Trail Riders get more than they bargain for! When new members join the American Competitive Trail Association they get $50 of gifts for a $25 membership.

How can they do this?

"It's all about our wonderful sponsors," states Carrie Scrima Co-Founder of the hottest horse sport in town.

ACTHA, as this new association is called, has taken the horse industry by storm with growth off the charts.

"We decided if we were to really going to have an impact on horse hunger we'd have to go national." According to Tom Scrima, part owner and head of marketing and sponsor relations, "we gritted our teeth and pulled the plug in March of 09....the rest is history."

ACTHA had been operating in Texas holding a occasional ride and helping a few rescues. Now rides happen in almost every state...as many as 10 per weekend.

"We're bracing our systems and infrastructure to be able to accommodate 1,000 rides per year," states Karen Van Getson, ACTHA's other co-founder.

With a web site surpassing anything in the industry ACTHA can assist, sanction, register and supervise rides everywhere...even overseas.

We owe a lot of our success to the incredible work Myers Network has done for us in building a web presence and site with functionality unthought of before. Riders enter the ride via the site, local ride hosts manage their rides including judges, rosters, accounting and scoring via the site. Members track their national standings and regional standings via the site. And best of all the trail horse gets the recognition they deserve with medals and point standings. An ACTHA registered trail horse has every skills challenge ever completed recorded and entered into the national data base. When someone is trying to buy a horse for their loved one and wants to make sure it is a very calm horse around noise, water or any specific desired trail trait they can use the ACTHA XRAY and look at it's record on those types of obstacles. "As far as we know this kind of close inspection capability and record keeping is a first and we are talking to major classified portals to share it."

An ACTHA sanctioned ride is usually 6 miles long and has no set time limit to complete...it's not a race and can be completed at a walk if desired..."we call it 'casual' competition" says Carrie Scrima. Along the way about 6 natural obstacles are encountered and the horse and rider's handling of this obstacle is judged. Each obstacle has a separate judging team that deals only with that one obstacle. This insures impartiality and makes getting good judges pretty easy.

But how can ACTHA pay members and ride attendees so lavishly with prizes and gifts? For this answer we go back to the sponsors. " I'm 62 and have been involved in all kinds of business. I know what has worked and what has not from my errors and successes. The one thing I have found is that corporate America, despite all the slander and mud thrown at it, really wants to help...when the cause is just and there's a chance to showcase their products. Here at ACTHA we give them such an opportunity. We start with one of our sayings...'let's do something good together'. Then we share our causes and our goals as well as our plan for success...not only for us but also for them. We never ask for or accept cash contributions...we're not looking for a hand out, we're in business too and know just how hard it is to make it. Never mind trying to make it in this economy! ACTHA is product driven....riders ride for prizes! Sure we all want to help a cause but at the end of the day charity starts at home. Our sponsors believe their products are great, and they are! So if they can give a little and our members see the quality and performance of their products they know they've won a customer for life...business 101."

And it's working...membership in ACTHA has grown from a modest 200 or so as a local Texas organization to now closing in on 3,000. Rides have grown from 3-6 per year to over 100 and heading for 1,000 fast. "If we can keep up this pace we will soon achieve our goal of providing $1,000,000 per year to equine charities". As great as that sounds it's not nearly enough. The USA has a big and shameful problem on its hands...by all accounts there are over 100,000 neglected horses in the USA. Many starving and in such poor shape that your heart breaks. Here is the most noble of all creatures that has built this great country of ours, died beside us in the hundreds of thousands in battle, built our bridges and damns and tunnels...and we've turned our back on them. We at ACTHA do not profess to know how or why this has happened, call it the economy, the new slaughter laws, over breeding, lack of education...all we know is we are going to do our best to be part of the solution and ask all our industry and owners to come together and not only treat the present crisis but place safe guards in that keep it from ever happening again.

As grizzly as the cause is we make the solution fun as well as effective. Riders have a fun beautiful ride...for pleasure or to be judged....sponsors profit based on their merits....horses get fed...that's ACTHA.

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Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/11/prweb3169934.htm.