Re: RC: Getting PUlled -- It's a Privacy Issue

[Lif Strand <fasterhorses@gilanet.com>]

1)   If I had a prospective or actual employer who spent that much energy looking into my personal life, it would be a favor to me to have them reject me as an employee. 

2)  If anyone gets busted for lying about where they were on a weekend, that's not the fault of publishing ride results, now is it. 

3)  If clients who haven't been told what you're doing are smart enough to somehow track you down at an endurance ride, they're smart enough to track you down anywhere.  It's not like the EN is distributed like Time Magazine or TV Guide, available at every grocery & convenience store counter.  Any client who would spend that much energy to track someone down is too scary to do work for.

4)  If your neighborhood cat burgler reads EN or even goes online & finds out you've completed a ride, it's already too late for them to do anything about burgling you because you'll be back home before the info is published. 

Results of Little League games are published.  Results of high school basketball & football games are published.  Media reporters can attend endurance races.  Anyone who wants to can be a spectator at an endurance ride, including employers, relatives & enemies.   The races often are held on public land.   I don't think there is any way endurance racing could be considered anything but a public event. 

Anyone who's so freaked out about privacy issues doesn't have to ride using their own name anyway.  Ride under a maiden name, you're father's name, your boss' name, an assumed name, enter your horse using a barn name or a fictitious name.  Or better yet, don't ride as an AERC member, at all.  Ride wearing a ski mask or a bag over your head.  Don't forget to dye your hair & wear a phony nose & moustache,  and you and your horse should be wearing elevator shoes to disguise your heights.  And of course, don't let the ride photographer take your photos, because there's evidence you were at the ride, too.

Sorry - I got a little carried away here.  But of all the areas to be concerned about privacy in this day & age, I don't think publishing ride results is one of them.  Lif

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