John, thank you for a thoughtful and common-sense post on the
subject. Instead of castigating the people who have worked so hard to
get us to where we are now from where we were "then", we need to thank them
profusely for volunteering their time to make the lives of our horses better,
and help the next round of volunteers to build on what past ones have done so
that they can go even further.
Personally, I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to the folks on
the veterinary committees past who have worked hard--sometimes ideas take years
to take root. (I know I had some ideas when I chaired the
committee nearly 2 decades ago that have only recently been implemented, by
other hands, under other leadership--but hey, who cares, as long as things move
forward.) These people have put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into
improving our sport and our knowledge base so that we can take better care
of our horses. And best of luck to Jim Baldwin in moving forward as
well--if we are REALLY interested in helping out our horses, let's quit carping
and get behind these people who are willing to work at this, despite having to
dodge verbal harpoons thrown on public forums by vocal
detractors.
