Re: RC: Finish Lines

[David LeBlanc <dleblanc@mindspring.com>]

At 07:00 AM 4/9/00 -0700, guest@endurance.net wrote:
>Mike Everett qbmike@hotmail.com
>The biggest hazards in all my endurance experience has been at the finish
area. Not always because of the placement of it but by the lack of ride
management to have adequate supervision to keep people away from the area.
A couple of times when I have been racing in we had to pull up because the
riders that had just finished in front of us were standing right across the
line with horses and all giving their card to the timer. Absolutely no
respect at all for the area. Sometimes there will be people,cars, dogs and
etc. hanging all around the line. 

I can agree with this - we'd all like to see ideally kept finish lines and
other areas on the ride.  I've been on rides where we shared roads with
people going fishing.  You get off the road, wait for them to stop -
whatever it takes to _safely_ get through the ride.  I had a ride last fall
where there was a motorcycle behind us on the trail.

>It is definately ride management responsibility to keep this area safe for
all concerned. 

And in case this ideal isn't met, then you have a responsibility to handle
your horse in a safe manner, just like if some nitwit pulls out in front of
me on the highway, I have to hit my brakes to try and avoid the accident,
even if they are in the wrong in the first place, and if I don't, I may be
held partially liable for the accident.  Stuff happens, and in most cases,
a real screw-up involves several people all making mistakes at once - and
typically if any one of them had done something different, it might not
have been a mess.  Just because someone else did something wrong doesn't
excuse my mistakes.

Unless it is a ride for the endurance grand championship of the universe,
then no one is going to remember whether you came in 1st, 3rd or what, but
if you don't ride safely and some sort of malfunction happens, people are
going to remember a long time.  I'm an extremely competitive person, but
the safety of everyone involved, whether it is a horse, dog, or person, far
outweighs whether I come in first, last or somewhere in-between.

BTW, I have a modest proposal - why not just change the rules so that all
distances have to do as LD does - you finish when you P&R down.  IMHO, it
would be better for the horse, and you wouldn't have dangerous races at the
end.  Probably won't happen, but it makes sense to me...


David LeBlanc
dleblanc@mindspring.com