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I wasn't there but some friends were. Catoosa is in the Tulsa area. The
best I recall, a man wanted to put on an endurance race with a "$20,000"
purse. (I did see that in print. The purse was dependant on number of
entries, I think - so wasn't nearly that much in reality.) Anyhow, he
knew nothing about endurance and suckered some real endurance people
into being the name front for his ride. But he refused to allow the
rules of AERC (vet checks, etc) to be used in "his" race.
At the last minute, day before the race, the endurance people got AERC to
pull sanctioning because of this blatant disregard for the welfare of the
horses. About half the riders went some miles down the road and hastily
set up another race to be properly and simultaneously run under AERC
rules. In this latter race, I think there was a 100% completion rate.
In the "non-endurance" race, AT LEAST seven horses died - and likely
more because we don't know what happened to them when they got home. It
is very important to note that the Catoosa catastrophe was NOT an AERC
endurance race; it was NOT put on by endurance people; most of the
entrants had NO idea what they were asking their horses to do because
they were NOT endurance people.
The man who put the race on was prosecuted and punished - but he also
sued AERC for "breach of contract" because they pulled sanctioning.
Consequently AERC had to defend it's self in court - costly - when it
was unprepared for such a mess.
All of the above information is my best recollection of what people who
were there told me about it. Anyone with more accurate info, please
supply and/or correct me if I have details wrong. If you're interested,
I may have some articles still in my files about it that I can copy for
you.
This particular event stands out as the biggest argument alive for AERC
taking the reins on cash awards for distance racing. If AERC doesn't
provide the rules and administration of such competitions, then it is
leaving it to fools like the man who orchestrated Catoosa. Just saying
"neigh" turns our backs on our horses - it stops nothing except OUR
ability to govern cash awards.
Diana Benson
Joplin MO
On Mon, 10 Mar 1997 17:47:44 -0700 Tracy Stampke <zebella@idt.net>
writes:
>In this month's EN, Karen Paulo made a reference to a ride in OKLa. held
>in 1987, where 7 horses died on the trail. It must have been called the
>Catoosa? Since this was before my endurance days, can anyone tell me
the >story on what happened? >tracy
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