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[RC] CAN someone explain the Dubai issue?? - Chrystal Woodhouse


I would really like to understand exactly what people are so upset about ... a horse that is ELEVEN yrs old and holds the 80 km record for last year ( so no "flash in the pan)  and finished with a 49 BPM Hr  sets a new world record in a place that has for THOUSANDS of years been breeding and racing their horses, hmmmmm......yep terrible , it is absolutely not the kind of racing I would like to do  however I really think that the old adage " people who live in glass houses should not throw rocks"  applies.........there are quite a few people in the N American horse world that could take a look at 100 mile completion rates and say that we are "abusing" our horses and putting them at risk.
 I really have no idea what the riders in Dubai are like as horsemen.... however from what I have been able to  glean of off ridecamp, neither does anyone  else ! They just seem to enjoy hurling accusations with no proof.
Just because a culture does something different doesn' t make it **wrong** and did  anyone get the irony that people who  are complaining about "racing" then using the fact that TB racers get to go to the winners circle and are more "famous than the jockeys???  So it is o.k. to race two year old horses as long as the victors go the winners circle?????

Bruce, loved your post however you forgot to mention perception, many people might think that "making" a horse go 100 miles( even if it is last) can be safely put under the obsession heading!!!:-) So who's opinion  counts??
I KNOW  that the minute John Crandell or Valerie Knavery  etc....sets a world record all of a sudden it is going to be o.k. to go that fast, but it seems  until then that every winter we are going to be subject to the same narrow minded comments of how "they" are so terrible to their horses. People seem to forget that they are talking about the  place where their Arabs ( the horse)came from! And what a long history the middle east has with their horses!! Why do Americans seem to think that they have some sort of monopoly on endurance riding/racing and how it should be run??????

Chrystal