To further expound on Trumans thoughs, How
expensive are necropsy's?
I have thought to myself that it should be
mandatory that if an equine dies at or shortly thereafter a ride, a necropsy
should be performed.
we all can learn so much from the results
and after reading everything on this thread, it may lead to less judgements
against the rider and the knowledge gleamed from the necropsy report seems
invaluable to all of us that want to enjoy this event.
Subject: Re: [RC] Thinking out loud &
Filing protests
I guess I'd have no problem with an automatic protest being
spawned by an equine fatality. After all that is exactly what happens with a
positive drug test. The reasons for the positive are sorted out in the
investigation associated with the protest.
Seems quite reasonable to
me that an equine death should spawn the same sort of investigation through
the protest procedure. The protest would not necessarily result in sanctions
if the fatality was cause by an accident, i.e., falling off a mountain
or some preexisting metabolic problem that surfaced.
However, it seems
that an automatic protest would be a good way to make sure all data relevant
to the death was saved and the death was addressed in a logical (and non
emotional ) manner.
"She had ridden all day long and then almost at the
finish line the horse drops dead. I wonder if someone might have blamed the
rider and filed a protest if it had happened more recently."
I
have been following this thread for days and I am very surprised on the
number of posts that infer that if a horse is treated or dies at a ride that
someone may automatically file a protest. I think this is really
unfounded, at least in my region (PS). Most of us realize that there is some risk to our
horses in this sport and therefore there will never be 0% on horse
deaths/treatment. I think most AERC members think the protest process should
be used for the most grievous violations or when all other means of
resolving an issue fail or if the violation is so blatant that public
censure is demanded. This is pretty obvious from the protest that
started this whole discussion. Also, to file a protest a person has to
come up with $100 and write up a report and possibly do lots of follow up
paperwork. Not too many people I know would take that on
lightly. I was at a ride a couple of months ago
where a very experienced rider was running with the top horses. At one
of the checks her horse crashed and had to be treated with fluids.
There was not even a hint of discussion that a protest should be
filed. I have also been at rides where a novice rider had to have
their horse treated and again there was no discussion of filing a
protest. The riders' behavior did not warrant censure. Reread
the protests in the last two ENs. It is the behavior of the rider(s)
that caused the protest to be filed not just that the horses had to be
treated. Most endurance riders understand that
if you participate in this sport long enough you there is a big probability
that you could have a horse treated for a metabolic problem. I think
what many riders cannot tolerate is the behavior of a small minority of
riders that have no regard for their
horse.
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