 |
Re: [RC] The warning to Mongol Riders - k s swigartFrom: Lif Strand lif.strand@xxxxxxxxx My concern has been and continues to be that in so much of ?what they say about risk (see your above quote from their warning, for example) little to none is about the horse. That is because there IS very little risk to the horses.? The horses are not going to be facing unfamiliar terrain, they LIVE there.? The horses are not going to be facing unfamiliar food, they will be eating what they always eat, doing what they always do.? These ponies in the wild cover 25 miles a day foraging for food. They aren't going to be asked to do much more than what they do every day of their lives, and will probably get more veterinary attention than if the race had never happened.??The ponies might end up being better off than if they hadn't done it. ?Everything is about the human's risk: ?the human chance of ?pain, injury, death. That's because that is where the substantial risks lie.? And the event was specifically DESIGNED to be this way.? The whole idea was to make it a test for the people but NOT for the horses.? How many times have we heard here on Ridecamp (in the endless LD debate) that 25 miles is not a test of endurance for a horse?? I cannot COUNT the number of times that somebody here has said that you can take a horse out of a pasture and do 25 miles on it (I have even heard the Duck say that if you have a horse in your pasture that you cannot just take out and do 25 miles on it, then that horse isn't worth feeding). ?Where are the warnings about risk for the Mongolian ponies? ??I don't see that anywhere. ?All I see is how Mongolian ponies ?can handle all this just fine Probably because they will be able to handle it just fine because they aren't going to be asked to do much more than they normally do, and they are probably going to be fussed over and cared for more than they normally would be. ?(see my email of yesterday re concerns about their not being conditioned, ?trained, wormed, the riders having little to no experience with long distance ?riding, etc). One of the two riders who did the Ride Across the Americas (Cape Horn South America to Prudhoe Bay Alaska) had never been on a horse before in his life. And the one horse that did the whole trip (Sufridor) all 6000+ miles of it not just 25, was a 14 hh pony.? Easyboot and Purina Mills were among the sponsors for that event, perhaps we should boycott them too for daring to sponsor such an ill-conceived adventure. ?These aren't equines that the riders own, have established feelings ?for or will have time to establish a relationship with. They aren't horses that anybody here owns or has established feelings for or has a relationship with either.? So, of course, since nobody here owns the horses, then nobody here has any claim to caring about them any more than any of the race participants does...oh yeah, except for that little fact that the lives of the race participants may depend upon the welfare of that pony they don't own, whereas everybody here has no personal stake in the welfare of any of the horses at all. It is downright insulting to suggest that any of us sitting at our computers half a world away cares more about any of these horses than the people who may be staking their very lives on the horses' well being. We, here in our armchairs, care deeply about the welfare of every horse on the planet, but those other horse people who are riding in this event cannot be counted on to care about any horse that they don't own because they don't have a relationship with it.? What self-righteous hogwash! kat Orange County, Calif. :) p.s.? To put into perspective just what is going to be asked of the horses in this event:? In order to finish in under the time allowed (two weeks), and assuming that the riders will be riding only 12 hours a day (there are ~14 hours of daylight but I used 12 hours because AERC riders routinely ride 12 hours a day on multi-day rides) the participants will have to average about 3.7 mph.? Not as fast as was required for the 2001 XP of horses that had to go at least twice as far at a time, and more often than just once. To put into perspective just what is going to be asked of the riders in this event: Yes, they will have to do 12 hours a day for two weeks, but might I remind you that Tribly Pederson, who routinely took all of or more than the 12 hours allowed to do an AERC 50 mile ride, was capable of doing so, day in and day out despite the fact that she was well into her 60s, physically infirm, and incapable of even getting on her horse without a mounting block.? She did it for petty much 12 hours a day, 5 days a week for 8 weeks. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|