Howard, stop exaggerating, Your numbers are
incredibly off. We had about 20,000 starting entries in endurance competition
(only and approximation, round numbers to make it easy) we had about 10
fatalities, this is 10/20,000 or 0.05%. five hundredths of one percent. And
remember that not all of these were attributed to competition.
Now if you want to figure the metabolic vs.
starters it is about 500/20,000 or 2.5% of them that had a problem. Remember as
well these figures for metabolic cover everything from pulse being over the
maximum to more serious incidents. Not all of them required any
treatment.
Where did you ever get that ten to twenty
percent figure???
Bob
Bob Morris Morris Endurance Enterprises Boise, ID
-----Original Message----- From:
ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ridecamp-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Howard
Bramhall Sent: Friday, November 21, 2003 1:56 PM To:
ridecamp Subject: Re: [RC] New Poll up
Come on, John, this is far from being a perfect world, and the sport of
endurance is far from that also. And, I do believe your numbers are
incredibly off. It isn't that .001% of our members consistently do the
wrong thing, it's that ten to twenty percent of our horses get into trouble at
our rides. We have to quit risking the lives of these animals by
us counting on the riders to do the right thing. Some of them might
have difficulty understanding what that concept actually means.
Until we make this sport 99.99% about the horse, in favor of the horse,
with rules based on the horse, things will remain as they are. There
really is a problem; horses are dying because of our rules (or lack
thereof), and, it is this sport that is creating the problem. And,
believe it or not, we can make the effort to change it around and do something
about it all.
Have the courage to add your name to it. Show the BOD that you care
about this issue, that action must be taken in this direction.
Otherwise, we'll just leave it up to the riders and, in case you've
missed it, it's the riders who are getting some of these endurance horses into
trouble in the first place. And, it's because of how the rules are set
up in our sport that allows them to do that.
Let's make the decision that they no longer have that option. Make
the sport more difficult for those who are ill prepared, protect the horse,
and start applying rules that make some sense. It really is time for us
to quit pussy-footing around here.
Lower the numbers, make the checks tougher, it's the first direction we
need to travel here. We can continue to do studies until the cows come
up, distort statistics to support our particular view, or, we can make some
changes in an area that is already in place. I know you guys know that
tightening the reins here will save some horses in our sport. Ask
yourself this: "Could it possibly make things any worse? Will the
number of horse deaths attributed to metabolic problems or metabolic
treatments increase because of this proposal?" I don't think even Heidi
or Joe would say that would happen.
99% (an arbitrarily chosen number) of our members do the
right thing. 99% of our riders don't need or benifit from vet gates or
CRIs or rigid rules concerning being at the starting line on time or
only entering one event (oops that rule disappeared w/o notice??) etc.
0.999% of our members infrequently do not do the right thing. maybe
.001% of our members consistently do the wrong thing.
There are
many ways to deal with the problems which are caused by not doing the
right thing. Whatever approaches are taken, one of the criteria for a
good solution should be to minimize the impact the solution has on the
99% who do the right thing, to not overly react to those members that
sometimes do the wrong thing, and to fully and completely correct
members who consistently do the wrong thing.
hmmm. New Rule 14:
members who are deemed to consistently do the wrong thing (as
arbitrarily and unquestionably determined by the Sanctioning Director
Zar of their home region since that person already has unquestionable
responsibilities) will be required to ride in the Junior Division until
such time as they stop consistently doing the wrong
thing.
