Charlene Batholomae is putting together a printout of our responses to
the question of cash prizes to send to the AERC Board of Directors. She
asked if I would write a cover letter to go with it, which is attached
below. As we are sending OUR opinions to AERC, this letter should come
from ALL OF US. Please read this cover letter and if it is acceptable
to you in it's content, please e-mail me back your name, preferably as
it appears on your AERC membership. I will append the names to this
letter, print it onto some appropriate paper and send it to AERC along
with the pages Charlene is putting together. If there are any
additional comments on this issue you wish to make, please post them to
the general newslist. However, if there are any comments specifically
re this cover letter, please post them to me directly. This letter
isn't coming from me, it's coming from US, so I'll do my best to modify
it to reflect everyone's feelings appropriately.
Thanks, everyone! Look, Mom! Democracy in action!
Susan Evans
P.S. If you're not an AERC member, feel free to add your name as well,
but if this isn't a great reason to get involved and JOIN, what is?
To the AERC Board of Directors,
As you are undoubtedly aware, many endurance riders from both this
country and around the world, the majority AERC members, subscribe to
the on-line endurance newslist to discuss, debate and learn about
various isssues in endurance. In the past several weeks, our topics
have run the gamut from alkalosis, rice bran, shoeing angles, saddles,
muscle fiber types and the inside secrets of getting heart monitors to
work. An eclectic group, to say the least.
One of the most recent topics has been asking the question about whether
or not large cash prizes are a desirable evolution in endurance riding,
such as in the upcoming event sponsored by Cosequin. The resulting
response to this question was quite impressive, with an unusually large
number of people voicing strong opinions. Attached are printouts of the
majority of these responses posted within a few days. From reading
these, I think you will agree that the endurance community is, as a
body, greatly concerned about the implications of allowing endurance to
evolve to this higher plane of competition. Specifically, there are
concerns regarding whether ride vets and ride managers are able to
adequately control overcompetitiveness and potential abuse of horses,
how additional control and protective measures will affect ride entry
fees and membership dues, whether endurance will become a "professional"
sport akin to other forms of racing and competition and whether "to
finish is to win" will become a thing of the past.
Like the membership body, undoubtedly there are members on the AERC
Board of Directors who left the "showring" world for endurance because
we felt the health and well-being of the horse was and should remain the
paramount priority in competition, and because we disliked the politics
and attitudes of "win at all costs" prevalent in other sports. We think
you will agree that the horse's well-being has ceased to be of relative
importance in many other forms of equestrian competition when money came
into the picture---to the extent that in some cases, a "cash prize" is
no better than blood money.
We, as members of AERC and the endurance riding community, are greatly
concerned that our sport remain true to the tenet, "to finish is to
win". We therefore felt it appropriate that you, as our elected
representatives, be made aware of the questions and concerns contained
within the enclosed pages.
Thank you for your attention.