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Re: [RC] rude riders and rules - Flora HillmanNo sport worth it's salt leaves their management open to rider abuse. Our ride managers are too important to us in the time, effort, knowledge, devotion, and sweat they put into managing our rides to leave them as fodder for abusive individuals. Every other high profile equine sport has written rules against abuse .... BUT those sports make sure their rules are followed -- and enforced -- by mandating Ride Stewards at every venue. Driving trials and shows use a Technical Delegate. Unfortunately, only FEI endurance rides, and those endurance rides that have a certain $ amount of prizes, are mandated to have a ride steward on site. The AERC hasn't been proactive in starting to promote the use of a ride steward at regular endurance rides....simply because they figure the current protest system is adequate. It isn't. Not from what I've recently seen and heard personally at rides, including our own. We're in a new era with more exposure to the sport, and with more and more people coming into the sport that are ignorant of the rules. When individuals feel they have free rein to act in an abusive manner to other riders, or ride management, or volunteers, or vetting staff -- and this includes experienced riders who feel they can bend the rules and run roughshod if and when they feel like it because there is no one there to stop them -- it hurts not only our sport, but all the people, spectators and competitors who are subject to such a unsettling, unsportsmanlike display. Ride Managers are often is so overwhelmed with just putting on the ride that they are blindsided when people march up and start shouting or acting in an irresponsible or abusive manner. I would hazard a guess that many RMs don't know how to handle this type of attack without going outside the bounds of polite discourse, which most are loath to do. Unfortunately, they also tend to feel handicapped because they are afraid of going one step too far in disqualifying or censuring the abusive rider right then and there in the face of rules that are currently too vague and left open to interpretation. They thus end up feeling used, hurt, humiliated, and ... yes... abused. Many also fail to document said abuse for future censure. Often when abuse of rules is brought to the RM by riders, the Ride Manager is often only given partial information, making it difficult, sometimes impossible, to effect a solution, especially when the RM's time and efforts are concurrently being directed to other aspects of the ride first. I think it's about high time that the AERC step forward and follow in the footsteps of other equestrian sports by instituting stewards at ALL rides. Mandating a ride steward not only takes a great burden off the RM but also acts as a diffuser for abusive situations. When an "official ride steward" is designated as the mediator --one who has no problem with enforcing AERC rules and isn't handicapped by another other official ride job -- in conjunction with an "on site" ride protest procedure laid out and expressed at the ride meeting, then any abuser either quickly learns to self-regulates their tirades, or risk face expulsion, disqualification, or censure. In this way abuse can be quickly nipped in the bud and not allowed to continue to go unchecked from ride to ride to ride. Flora Hillman =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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