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Re: [RC] horse fatalities, 2002 - Heidi SmithI'm going to jump into the fray here, because I happen to disagree - I think the statement by the veterinary committee is acceptable. Let's look at the statement again: "No specific management or veterinary circumstances have been identified that may have prevented this fatality." Why is this unnacceptable? Obviously 'something' caused these deaths - dehydration, freak accident, dangerous section of trail, spooked horse in camp... The veterinary committee is not trying to say that there was no cause for the deaths. Only that they did not identify any SPECIFIC things that management and veterinarians did or did not do that might have contributed to the accidents: i.e. there is no obvious blame to be placed, and no grounds for disciplinary action against ride management and veterinarians. Thank you, Steph. I've started replies to this three or four times today, but have deleted them as I couldn't think of a diplomatic way to say what you just said. It appears that while the causes of death are known here, there was no specific human error that could be identified. That is not the same thing as saying that there WASN'T an error (or more likely several small ones in some cases)--only that it could not be conclusively identified. This is not a CYA statement--it simply says, "We looked and we couldn't see anything that we feel could have conclusively prevented this death, if it had been done or hadn't been done." I don't know why people try to read so much into simple statements--the vet committee is as concerned about horse deaths as anyone (if not moreso), but they also have the burden of approaching the subject in a logical and scientific manner, and don't have the luxury of spouting off a bunch of "maybes." This is not some big political coverup, as some folks seem to want to make it. <sigh> Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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