Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

If the conditions are similar and the numbers are large - 
I'd expect the number of fatalities to go with the 
percentage of the population.

The completion rate for at least 8 years has been within 1% 
for LDs and 50 mile rides.  While the distance is shorter 
for LDs - usually the riders and horses are less 
experienced/fit and younger than in a 50.  The LD population 
is about 1/3 of the total rider entry now.

If you look at the completion rate even through 75 mile 
distances - you find that it's still high.  This says to me 
that the stress of the length of the ride is not the biggest 
factor in causing problems for horses for distances of 60 
miles or so.  When you get to 100 mile rides - the 
completion rate drops dramatically and at least this year - 
the fatality rate is 5X the population. Note that there may 
also be a rider problem too as the rider gets more tired in 
a 100 mile ride.

Yes - we could list the DOB for the horse if the owner 
provided it.  It would probably show that on the average LD 
horses are younger than those doing endurance.  I looked at 
this briefly and didn't see a correlation but with small 
numbers like 11 - it's hard to get a correlation.

And yes - some of the material was difficult to obtain.

To me the most significant part of the data is showing how 
much more difficult 100 mile rides are for horse and rider.
In principle - we could have reduced our fatality rate by 
27% by simply not holding 100 mile rides.  And it would only 
affect 5% of our total rider entries.

I don't think that's the answer though.  Our sport was 
founded on 100 mile rides and they represent a goal that 
characterizes endurance.

Mike

Howard Bramhall wrote:
> I may not have stated what I meant to say clearly.  I thought 4 out of 
> the 11 total was high.  I expected zero or one for the 25 milers out of 
> the 11 total.
>
> Is there any way to find out the age of these horses?  I didn't see it 
> anywhere on the information provided.
>
> I am truly grateful to the members of the Welfare of the Horse Committee 
> providing this information.  I'm sure some of it was difficult to obtain.
>
> We owe it to these horses to pursue this further.  What have we learned 
> from these deaths?  What, if anything, are we going to do to try and 
> prevent further ones from happening at our rides?
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One would think that logic would prevail. But then, if logic did prevail,
men would ride sidesaddle. 
~  Bob Morris

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