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k s swigart wrote:
> Richard Allen said:
>
> > To suggest that a horse eliminated for a minor lameness
> > which has disappeared the next morning has been
> > 'over-ridden' to an extent that merits some sort of ban
> > just doesn't tally with what actually happens at most rides.
>
> A horse that has been removed for the competition because it was
> sufficiently lame to be deemed not fit to continue WAS over-ridden (i.e.
> it was ridden beyond its level of fitness).  And it is the fact that "it
> doesn't tally with what happens at most rides" is that at most rides
> there are lots of riders who over ride their horses (myself included,
> BTW).

I've liked a lot of what you've written on this, but I have to take 
issue with this one.

No horse is ever more than one step away from a lameness-causing mishap, 
no matter how conservatively or cautiously ridden.  Although lameness 
can result from riding a horse beyond his abilities, the majority of 
lamenesses at rides do not, IMO, fall into that category.  Hey, horses 
sometimes come up lame just loose in the pasture.  So it is not correct 
to say that coming up lame at a ride is necessarily due to over-riding. 
 We know that even colic at a ride is not always due to over-riding, 
but can have other causes.

> One way to get riders to stop doing this (who if they are supposedly the
> best in the world should be possible) is to have penalties imposed if
> they do.

Not finishing the ride is already a penalty, and at major events like 
these with all of the work and cost of getting there, it is a BIG penalty.

> Something needs to be done to get the "elite" endurance riders at the
> world championship level to be a lot more careful with their horses.
> Because right now, we know that more than half of them are not.

OK, I go along with that.

> It may be that there is no way for even elite riders to be careful
> enough to not have huge numbers of them overriding their horses even
> when they are actively trying not to (which, is not the case at such
> events today, in today's world championship events it is apparent that
> many of the riders are more interested in winning than in riding the
> horse within its level of fitness so make the decision--whether
> consciously or not--to not care if they over ride their horse because
> they figure the vets will stop them from over riding the horse to its
> permanent detriment), and if that is the case, then endurance SHOULDN'T
> have a world championship.

I don't think we need to throw in the towel and say "it can't be done."

> If telling riders that they have to know when their horse is not fit to
> continue in order to maintain their qualifications for the event and
> telling teams that they have to pick riders and horses that are actually
> capable of finishing the event with some reliability (i.e. 75% of the
> time) in order to maintain the team qualification makes is so that there
> are no riders and no teams qualified, then that is pretty much proof
> positive that NOBODY should be out there racing at a world championship
> endurance event.

AIUI the overall completion rate for 100-mile one-day rides is about 
60%.  But nearly all of those non-finishing horses suffer no long-term 
harm and come back to ride again.

> Right now, there is NOTHING in the structure of the event that provides
> any incentive for riders to ride their horses within their level of
> fitness if doing so puts the horse "out of the medals."  Consequently,
> there is no way to know if riders are not riding their horses within
> their level of fitness because they choose not to or because they simply
> cannot.  Give them a strong incentive to ride the horse within its
> capabilities even if it doesn't medal, and we can find out.

But you are proposing penalties, not the best incentives.  Worse, 
penalties which will have unintended negative consequences.  Worse 
still, you would penalize "shit happens" events (such as stumbling on a 
loose rock and suffering a sprain) that are largely random in nature. 
For example, I once pulled from an Old Dominion because while crossing a 
dirt 4-wheeler barrier, which was soft, his foot sank and he cut his 
fetlock on a buried rock.  Additional penalties for something like that 
are just plain wrong, IMO.

> And if we find out that there really is no way to race horses over 100
> miles at a world championship event and ride them within their level of
> fitness doing so, then we really shouldn't be doing it at world
> championships.

That's a pretty critical "if."

> kat
> Orange County, Calif.

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