Man, the last two months have been a little helter skelter. My Gators
get off to a really bad start (bad enough they lose to Tennessee, but Ole
MISS????), War Cry went down at Big South Fork, the Cubbies will not be
attending this year's world series (blame it on Florida), Arnold got elected
Governor in Kelly4Nya (can't blame Florida for that one), we lost a horse at the
Pan Am's, Bush's deficit spending will bankrupt us all, rumor that a horse
was lost at a ride in Vermont, Rush Limbaugh turns out to be a phony-boloney,
hypocritical, drug-addicted racist, and Maggie and Malik have a close
encounter of the worst kind at the National Championships.
If you're like me (and God help you if you are) and you sometimes sit back,
with a beer, and reflect on what exactly is going on in the world, you just
gotta wonder where did all of this bad Karma come from? Now, I can't
answer the California question, I'm not sure if even they can, and I haven't
quite figured out why it's perfectly OK for us to pay for a free health care
system for all the citizens of Iraq when we don't seem to have anything
close to that in our own country, but, don't you get the feeling that enough is
enough and it's time to step up to the plate?
The one thing I reflect on more than the others is the sport of
endurance. All of this talk we've had on Ridecamp and that other site
about horse deaths, all of our actions, the development of the Welfare of the
Horse Committee, the obvious fact that we really do want to put the horse first,
over everything else in our sport, and here we are still losing horses at the
rate we were last year (one of our worst on record). What the heck is
going on? Is there a commonality that's occurring over the last few years
that wasn't occurring when we didn't seem to be losing so many? Will there
ever be a viable answer to all of this? And, bottom line, what, if
anything, are we going to do about it all?
Now I don't want to be the one to dwell on this, because, it has been
pointed out that there are a lot of great things that go on at an endurance ride
that should be talked about more (kind of sounds like Bush explaining Iraq),
and, I agree that is true. It's what keeps bringing me back to the
rides.
But, while I was reflecting on our sport I did think of two things that
seem to be in play when horses get into trouble at our rides. One is
distance traveled. I'm pretty sure this has something to do with it.
When you travel half way across this country to go to a ride, and, I don't care
if you think your horse is having the time of his life back there playing cards
or something relaxing like that, the horse is being stressed. He may not
look stressed when you stop for gas and give him a carrot or two, but all those
miles, passing large rigs that make so much noise the horse trailer shakes, a
couple near misses on the highway, stuff that make up a typical road trip,
stresses him out big time. And, I really doubt that he's sleeping back
there.
The other thought concerns 100 mile rides. I'm starting to believe
that we need to have a set criteria that a horse has to accomplish before the
rider is allowed to enter a 100 mile ride with a horse. Now, I'm not
talking about the National Championship ride or anything like a Pan Am, but just
your normal, AERC ride where a 100 miler is offered. As it now stands, the only
requirement is that the horse is 5 years old. That's all we require!
No previous miles, no prior completion required. To do 100 miles in 24 hours or
less, the only restriction AERC has is that the horse is 5 years old. That
might be a mistake!
The point I'm trying to make is we need to do something here. Dane
Frazier has suggested that a horse spend a year doing LD's before doing
their first 50 miler. And, he adds that the horse should do a year of 50
milers before doing their first 100. I can hear the moans and groans
over this idea but, if you stop and think about the best interests of the horse
and the fact that things aren't really getting much better along the lines of
horse deaths at endurance rides the way things are currently, you may decide it
might be time for a change in this direction. We need to step up to the
plate.
