The different events

Today there are four official events that you can compete in. They are straight track, winding track, high jump and long jump.

In straight track the obstacles are placed in a row, and in the winding track in a logically turned order, but not in a distinct pattern like an L, S or something like that (it should look almost like a horse jumping track). For each obstacle that is knocked down the rabbit and the handler (the equipage) gets one fault. You also receive one fault if;

In the tracks there are four different levels of difficulty. Higher levels include more difficult obstacles in the tracks. All equipage starts out in the lowest level of difficulty, and for each placing they get what we call an “upgrade point”. When the rabbit has three upgrading points in the same level of difficulty it has qualified for the next highest level. The number of placings in each given class is based on the number of starting rabbits there are in the class. For every five starting rabbits one place is given. For example if there is 10 starting rabbits two places are given, if there are 26 starting rabbits six places are given. However the rabbit must finish the track with less than two faults per round to get an upgrading point. The most common is that one basic round and a final is arranged, which means that you can have up to a total of 4 faults and still get an upgrading point. If the rabbit completes two rounds without any faults it will receive an upgrading point no matter how high or low it places.

The lowest level of difficulty is called “easy” and this is the class were all rabbits begin. The maximum height is 30 cm (11.81 inches) and the track has at least 8 obstacles. After collecting three upgrading points the rabbit qualifies for the next level which is “harder than easy”. Here the maximum height of the obstacles is 38 cm (14.96 inches) and the track should contain 10 of them. Like before, the rabbit has to collect three upgrading points until it’s qualified for the next class which is called ‘difficult’. This level has a maximum height of 45 cm (17.72 inches) and there should still be at least 10 obstacles. You must collect five upgrading points in the difficult level before you are qualified for the most challenging level, which is called ‘Elite’. The elite level has a maximum height of 50 cm (19.96 inches) and the track has 12 obstacles.

The lengths of the obstacles are adjusted to fit the class, but there is a maximum length in the easy level that is 45 cm (17.72 inches) and for the other three levels 80 cm (31.15 inches). There are also regulations for the shortest length between the obstacles. That is 250 cm (98.43 inches) in all the classes, but in the higher levels an even greater distance is preferred to give the rabbits the best possible opportunity to.

There are some different judging, A-F. The most common is judging C which means that all equipages makes one round and that a predecided number of them will make it to a final round. Judging D is also used. That means that all the equipages that complete the first round are allowed to start in the second round.

This was a short description of the most important rules in the two tracks, so now let us move forward to the long- and high jump. In these two events the rabbit jumps over a single specially made fence.  

In the high jump it is all about jumping as high as possible. The fence increases in height after every round. The rabbit has three attempts on each height. If the rabbit fails all three attempts the equipage is eliminated. The rabbits that performed the jump correctly continue to the next round, in which the height of the fence is increased. You cannot clear the same height more than once. If all the rabbits that are still in the competition fail at the same height, the winner is the rabbit that has used the least attempts to clear the previous height. If those results are also the same you have to look at the height before that and so on until you can separate them to get a winner. If there is no clear winner, there must be a “re-match” between those equipages that ended at the same result. Long jump has the same system of declaring a winner, but here the rabbit must jump as far as possible.

In high and long jump we have a different upgrading system than in competition in the courses. There are only two classes, ‘not elite’ and ‘elite’. The rabbits starts in not elite. To receive an upgrading point in these events a limit of 60 cm (23.62 inches) in high jump and 160 cm (5.2 feet) in long jump must be cleared. To advance to elite in either of the events, the equipage have to collect three upgrading points respectively.