We've had many dead horse discussions here on Ridecamp. I don't remember too many for this year, but last year and the year before that there was several. Accusations were made, rumors and innuendos flew at subsonic speeds through the air, and flames were thrown in all directions, which is what Ridecamp is really known for doing well. And one of them was discussed, in detail, in Endurance News. Death, by innuendo and accusation! haha, jk. And there was only one thing learned from most of the discussions that sticks in my head. And this wasn't really that "shit happens," even though it usually does, but the bottom lesson learned, for me anyway was: "this is one tough sport!" It's tough on the riders and it's tough on the horses. During the history of the sport it hasn't always been the horse that has died. We've lost some humans as well. We came very close to losing Susan Kasemeyer, the Southeast's Regional Director, at one ride a few years back, and she's hardly missed a ride since that one. In fact, I do think she actually tried to finish that ride, when she woke up from her heart attack in the hospital asking whomever was in the room at the time how her horse did at the last vet check. Nina held Susan down, as she tried to get out of the bed and put back on her riding tights, and, finally, convinced her Mom that there simply wasn't enough time left for her to get the completion, so she might as well lay back and enjoy room service from her comfortable hospital bed. We don't seem to talk about the humans as much, because the horse deaths have been more numerous and more recent, and visits to the hospital, for humans, tend to save more of them than visits to vet clinics, do for the horses. And, sometimes I do think some of ya'll believe that the horse death is more important than the human one! All I can say is the more serious endurance riders I've met over the last few years lead me to believe that quite a few of them would be perfectly happy to die, on top of their horse, either training for an endurance ride, or even attending one, than anywhere else. Well, maybe not actually attending the ride, because the true endurance rider would not want to be the cause of stopping or slowing down any endurance ride for even one minute ("There's still daylight left, please, leave me be here along the trail, I'll be perfectly fine, and continue on with your ride; you're burning daylight.") This is what I'd imagine most dying endurance riders would say to those who stopped to help them when the injured rider knew his time had come to say "good-bye, cruel world, good-bye." That's my opinion, ain't much, but I really do believe it's one tough sport. Please, let's not try to analyze it to the point where we conclude that it is no longer "safe," which would eventually lead to it no longer being available. The sport must go on, and whatever bad things happen, we may learn something about that particular incident, or we may only learn the truth, and the truth is: "this is one tough sport." cya, Howard (just trying to keep things simple, so I can understand them)
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