Re: Oakland Hills Incident

["Susan Flagg" <janesmom@ecis.com>]

Ken Cook wrote:
>  I dont take it seriously, actually it is a bit of a ridiculous thought.
God
>help people that win multiple days of a multiday ride, or top ten them.
They
>must be killing thier horse with abuse! At least mine gets a week off in
>between rides. Look out multiday riders. You are next on the abuse list..
Or
>the 100 mile winners, heck, they are are doing two 50 milers fast in the
same
>day!

Ken--

    Your response is perfect!  I don't know David personally, but this
particular thread has gotten TOTALLY out of hand.  I did the 50 at Oakland
Hills.  I've trotted or cantered that particular section of trail many
times, along w/French Trail which is even narrower.  The horse lost its
footing (or the edge of trail gave way) and he fell.  It's unfortunate that
Dancer died, but jeez!!!, give it a rest folks!  It could have happened to
ANYONE of us, even at a walk!  Imagine how you'd feel if you'd lost your
horse.  Bless all the volunteers who hiked out to help cut the trail to get
him out, took water, fluids, etc.

    And for all of you thinking this might have been a dangerous stretch of
trail (it isn't), do we want all of our endurance rides to be held on fire
roads.  How VERY DULL!!!! that would be!

    And, for the record, the finish line was about three miles from where
Dancer fell in to the ravine, so they were NOT racing to the finish at that
point.  The front runners had almost two miles of fire road to race on (if
they'd wanted to) after they got off that single track trail.

        Sue Flagg (gads, I can't believe I'm even bothering to comment on
all this garbage!!!)