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RE: [RC] rules and protecting the horse - David LeBlancSteph Teeter said: So maybe the question should not be 'do we need more rules' to protect the equines? But 'which rules are the most appropriate and effective' in protecting the equines. Bob Morris said: On that basis one should be capable of taking that basic "X"/:1000 factor and adding "Y" the expected factor associated with the additional risk of competition. I am aware, we would like to see the "Y" factor equal to zero but that is not a realistic concept. Thus, at some point we must become realistic and accept some loss of entrants in endurance competition if for no other reason than natural attrition. Comments? I think you've both hit the nail on the head. Some horses will die, regardless of what we do. More horses are going to die, or be injured, doing any equine sport than sitting around the pasture. So it then becomes a matter of acceptable risk and losses. I work in software and network security - what we do isn't about eliminating risk, it is about managing risk. Same sort of thing here. I'll draw another parallel from my day job - some people just do the right thing naturally. Most people _try_ to do the right thing as long as they know what it is. Some people will do the wrong thing even once they know it is wrong, or they think that their needs outweigh everyone else's. It's these last 2 groups that need rules and processes put in place - the processes help people who want to to do the right thing, and there's a way to deal with the people who won't do the right thing. Now as you, Joe and Heidi so often and correctly point out, rules have side-effects, so the question is what's the right set of rules to have? I agree with Steph that we don't have it perfect yet, so there probably is room for some improvement. Now the question gets to be how to improve - which is good for some discussion. Speaking of discussion, I think we as a group could do a lot better with this - people go around attacking each other instead of sticking to trying to figure out what's the best thing to do. We used to have a rule on most of USENET - back when it was useful - that if someone attacked the person and not the point, then that person had lost the debate and it was time to move on. This rule actually comes from ancient Greek rules on debate. It was useful because it helped keep things relatively civil, though it obviously did not and could not stop all incivility. So for example, we have a rule that horses have to pulse down in 30 minutes or be pulled. This is supposed to protect the horse. As it turns out, few horses are pulled for this reason, and many horses that end up in trouble meet this criteria. I'd argue that this isn't a very effective rule because it is too lenient. Maybe it ought to be a shorter time. Maybe we need a graduated penalty, similar to what was proposed. I don't think any of us know all the answers, but we'll get further along by discussing it. I also think that horse death is too rare to be a useful measure. You could study endurance-related horse death for 5 years before you got a big enough sample to be significant. Metabolic pulls are more common, and measures taken to reduce metabolic pulls, and especially metabolic pulls that require treatment will help reduce preventable horse deaths. Overriding the horse is the problem, and that can range from a recoverable mistake (e.g., overstay your hold, slow down) to a serious incident. My $0.02 (maybe $0.04) =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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