Funny, I've seen Tevis on particularly hot years
have "failure rates" well over 60%. And we don't boo Tevis for that.
Did you happen to notice that the poster mentioned 45-degree heat? In case
you're not familiar with the Celcius scale, that is the equivalent of
113F. I would challenge anyone here to run a ride with appropriate
veterinary control in that weather (dunno what the humidity was, but there was
also mention of sandstorms), and with horses there that were not acclimated to
those conditions, and NOT have a HUGE "failure" rate. Little wonder,
also, that the UAE horses had a distinct advantage--I can only imagine
horses coming from Europe or the USA not doing well in those conditions, where
we are just coming out of winter.
Too many people are willing to look at things with
the most negative connotation possible--my first reaction to that was gee, under
those conditions, the vets and riders sure were conscientious, and the
standards sure had the horses' welfare in mind--the horses were pulled for their
own benefit, and not run into the ground. I'm glad to hear that the
horse in this particular post that couldn't recover past 68 was pulled--he
will remain healthy to run another day.
There
was only 16 finishers out of 120 starters, but i belive the finishes avaged
out the speed at 21 km/h. and only 4 of these horses are from outside the
uae (2 from usa and 2 from germany).
