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What there isn't a place for is rudeness, mean-spiritedness, and
ruthless behavior toward horses. In the Team Roping world, where all
the main events are sanctioned by a national organization, person and
animal abuse used to be fairly rampant until the national org started
flexing it's muscle.
It now issues credit card type ID cards which are required with photo ID
at each event. If the rider misbehaves within certain guidelines
(mostly relating to ethics), they can be banned from the competition or
for a certain time period, even for life. This kind of sanctioning was
applied to some hard nosed individuals, who raised a holy ruckus, then
disappeared.
It put the entire sport back on an even keel, where honest and yes, even
polite competition could occur. Ropers are some of the most
aggressively competitive horse people I've met, so if they can do it,
endurance folks can do it.
The AERC already exists. Why doesn't it flex a little muscle here?
After all, it isn't the competition that's bad, it's the human jerks.
Mike Sofen
Seattle, WA
m i k e s o f e n
IMS Data Architectures
> -----Original Message-----
> From: TrotALongK@aol.com [SMTP:TrotALongK@aol.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 1997 12:43 AM
> To: ridecamp@endurance.net
> Subject: Re: LD RACES???
>
> In a message dated 97-06-11 00:20:56 EDT, you write:
>
> << I am not aginst LD, I am against HORSE ABUSE. I see it at EVERY
> ride I go
> to. And, mostly by LD riders. >>
>
> Sorry, but I don't agree. I'm still fairly new to Endurance riding, I
> have
> done 4 LD rides so far and planning on doing my first 50 next. Anyway,
> my
> observation is that there are more horses ridden too fast and too hard
> in the
> 50s than in the 25 and 30 milers, at least down here in Southern
> California.
> As an example, here's my experience from the Malibu Ride on May 10
> where I
> volunteered as vet secretary and got a close up look at a lot of
> horses. The
> 2nd vet check for the 50 (1hr hold) was also the final one for the 25.
> Among
> the first twenty 50milers half of the horses showed obvious signs of
> fatigue.
> I don't remember how many got pulled (I think at least 4 or 5, and a
> number
> of riders got remarks in their vet card to WALK the horse untill the
> next
> check) but I was supprised how ignorant some riders were. I remember
> one guy
> who, after his horse got pulled, saddled up and rode away, waiving to
> the
> vets and saying "Guess we're going home!". The horses in the 25 looked
> alltogether much better, most of them were fit to continue and the
> riders
> spirits seemed much less competitive. I guess everybody was glad that
> they
> had made it up to Castro Peak and back down.
>
> I got the same impression on the rides that I actually rode myself. At
> my
> first one I had an overly excited 50miler yell at me "Get your horses
> butt
> out of the way" - in a part of the trail where there was only room for
> one
> horse at a time. And I had thought that this is all about "to finish
> is to
> win"....
>
> I don't know how it is in other parts of the country (hey, this is
> L.A. -
> what do I expect?!) but around here it seems like the 50mile rides
> attract
> more people who ride primarly to win or at least to place top ten.
>
> By the way, I don't think there's anything wrong with being
> competitive but I
> don't have any sympathy for ignorance and arrogance. No matter what
> distance.
>
>
> Kirsten
> & Slim (who says "Hey, what's wrong with racing...?)
RReceived: (from majordom@localhost) by fsr.com (8.8.2/8.7.3) id HAA04098; Wed, 11 Jun 1997 07:11:09 -0700 (PDT)
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Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 05:56:46 -0700
From: Niccolai Murphy <hlurphy@socal.wanet.com>
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To: Bob Wilson <bobwilson@pe.net>
CC: RUN4BEAR@aol.com, kfreeman@meridian-data.com, Ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: Re: LD RACES???
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Bob Wilson wrote:
> RUN4BEAR@aol.com wrote:
>
> > Now, we have 25 mile RACES??? Hey, don't tell me AERC says they are
> NOT
> > races, cause everybody (well many) treats them as such.
> >
> > I say, keep LD, but put a minimum time for completion...say 4 hours
> > (dependant on terrain? or is that asking too much?). It is a RARE
> horse/rider
> > who is not ready for 50 but IS ready for 8 to 10 mph.
>
> A nice approach for the 25 at a recent ride (Tule Blues) was to take
> completion time as the time at which pulse criteria was met at the end
>
> of the ride.
I think this was done in response to a change in AERC rules which
requires this. However the criteria was changed to 72 bpm instead of the
usual 60.
Nicco
-- Open the pod bay door please Hal.
eceived: (from majordom@localhost) by fsr.com (8.8.2/8.7.3) id HAA04019; Wed, 11 Jun 1997 07:10:27 -0700 (PDT) Resent-Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 07:10:12 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <339EACBA.C174F9EF@socal.wanet.com> Date: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 06:48:42 -0700 From: Niccolai Murphy <hlurphy@socal.wanet.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.0b5 [en] (WinNT; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: ridecamp@endurance.net Subject: Racing was LD RACES + whine country markings etc. X-Priority: 3 (Normal) References: <970611034310_-1496898511@emout19.mail.aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Resent-Message-ID: <"gUyXm.0._z.37hdp"@starfish> Resent-From: ridecamp@endurance.net X-Mailing-List: <ridecamp@endurance.net> archive/latest/10688 X-Loop: ridecamp@endurance.net Precedence: list Resent-Sender: ridecamp-request@endurance.net Errors-To: ridecamp-request@endurance.net
We've been around this loop before. It degenerated in to a 25 vs 50 vs100 bashing and who were real endurance riders and who were not. I thought we agreed the last time around that....
1. They time us, and they count us out and count us in, placing us in order of finish. => RACE. This lifts this sport above others where scoring is so subjective. Apart from BC, we know where we stand, only the clock matters. In many (not all) equine amature sports it's fashion, it's who you are and it's who you know that can determine a placing.
2. You get shitty people in all divisions. They may be ignorant of, arrogant to and abusive to you, me, volunteers and their mounts. In Cuba they would put them in a special police unit, in the US the best we can hope is to torture them with a comfy chair.
3. All distances have their uses. Horses for courses, strokes for folks.
4. You are responsible for yourself and your animal, NOT the ride manager. Ribbons get blown away, eaten by cows, pulled down by boy scouts trying to keep the country side tidy, etc. Worst comes to the worst you can always go back the way you came. If you don't know how, get some basic survival skills. There are many courses on this (orienteering is a good way) but the hardest is to try spending the day in Disney Land drinking Coke and then trying to find a restroom (hint they don't mark the way with ribbons). This is a sore topic for me anyway as I can't see a lot of ribbons, being colour blind.
5. What ever our reasons for playing this crazy game, we have fun the night before, we have fun volunteering, we have fun after the ride and sometimes the ride itself isn't so bad. Though, on some of the tougher rides it's like banging your head on a brick wall, it sure feels nice when you stop. If it stops being fun, it's probably Nature's way of telling you to pick another hobby. By the way, here's a hint. The tougher the ride and the more easy it is to get lost, the closer to death you get, the more fun you are supposed to be having (it makes the after ride stories more fun, "Bill you remember that time your horse dragged you on your butt the last ten miles?"... "Yeah nothin' unusual 'bout that 'cept the barbed wire fence."). If you find yourself worrying a lot before, during and after the ride, it is a sign that you are not having fun, unless you like worrying.
6. Ride managers do a lot for 60 bucks (can't even do two dressage tests for that price), so if they stick me in a wet hole the night before and mark the route with dry leaves and ask me to wipe my butt with poison oak, it's OK with me. Just glad some dumb fool is willing to do the job! So when you complain about their rides make sure you grin a lot when you kick their butts so that they know you still love em!
Nicco
-- Open the pod bay door please Hal.
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