Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Joe Long wrote:

> > Really? You could have fooled me!  Until last year, the AERC BOD and the
> > Vet Committee would not even admit to the members that horse deaths even
> > happened and denied them information on the ones that did!
> I'm getting tired of all this bullshit.  That is totally false.  What
> do you hope to gain with a wild claim like that?
Where the Hell were you? You want to see my letters to the Executive
Director that went unanswered? My emails to AERC? My posts? The refusal
to send me Vet Committee Reports until I went public on Ridecamp? The
note from a member of the BOD who told me I had "made the worst mistake
of my life" by posting on this issue?  Documented! I gottem all! I can
back it up, so don't tell me it's bullshit! I don't hope to gain
anything except some concern for the welfare of the horse.

Hell, maybe I'll write a book...isn't that what I'm supposed to do?
> > If there is improvement being made, IMHO, it's happening too damn slow!
> Better slow improvement than fast ill-considered changes that make
> things worse!!!! 
"Slow" is relative. When horses are dying at rides and is doing NOTHING,
it's time to try SOMETHING....
> > > And one more time:  if equine deaths at endurance rides are unacceptable,
> > > then we must stop having endurance rides.  Period.  End of story.  Because
> > > as long as we have endurance rides, there will be some (small) number of
> > > equine fatalities ? so if we cannot accept that, we must stop having rides.
> > > That¹s what ³unacceptable² means.
> > That's strange.  The SE hasn't had a metabolic death in I believe 7
> > years now?  Meanwhile the REST of AERC is up to about 20 in the last two
> > years?  You call that "small"? Geeez... It's obvious to the most CASUAL
> > observer from reading posts on Ridecamp that the SE...and SERA...is
> > doing MUCH more on this issue than the other regions...AND AERC, in
> > spite of our sand, heat, humidity, mud, etc.
> When I was competing in the SE and working with rides and the SERA we
> had periods of several years without a fatality, a fact I am quite
> proud of.  But there were tragic fatalities in some years, including
> multiple deaths in a single year.  Short-term statistics on
> low-frequency events don't really mean very much.  And a decade is
> short-term in this issue, and ten is small, yes.
7 years is short term? Ten is small? Now, IMHO, THAT is bullshit!
> > Joe, if we keep believing horse deaths are inevitable, then it will be.
> > You go ahead and preach "gloom and doom". I choose not to believe that.
> "Gloom and doom?"  Wow.  You know damn well that I've taken the
> positive side of the issue, including pointing out that the sky is NOT
> falling.  However, I am a realist, and choose to view the world as it
> is and not a fairy tale.  You can "choose" not to believe it, but as
> long as there are endurance rides in any numbers there will sometimes
> be fatalaties, both horses and riders (we have had some rider deaths,
> too, do you know that?  One happened in the Southeast).  Just as, as
> long as we drive cars, there will be fatal auto crashes.
To borrow your own words, that's "apples and oranges". 
> > One more time..."one death is too many"....and like many other members,
> > I will continue to pursue that goal for as long as it takes.
> One more time, as I have said many times before, "one death is too
> many."  But I don't sensationize the issue and attack anyone who
> doesn't favor this or that ill-considerd action as a "horse killer" or
> even "insensitive."
>
> There has been far too much bombast, smoke, arm-waving, mud-slinging,
> chest-beating and hypocrisy spewn out on this list on this issue for
> too long, most of it from about three people.  You aren't helping, and
> if you really want to help, shut the hell up and try to learn
> something from those who've actually been working with the problem for
> a while.
Over the last couple of years, I think most people on Ridecamp would
agree that I have been "working on the problem for a while". And who
might those people you are referring to be? ....and were I not a
gentleman and a Marine, I might have more to say on your suggestion.

Jim, Sun of Dimanche+, and Mahada Magic


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