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Re: [RC] dead horse - Jim HollandAnnie George wrote: There is plenty enough hard feelings, division, suspicion, separation and all that to go around. We even have a hard time discussing it among ourselves with out hurting someone's feelings,. Think how it will be when a person is being wrung thru the ringer when their horse dies. Nobody is suggesting that a rider, a vet, a Ride Manager, or anyone associated with a horse death be "wrung thru the ringer". However, ALL information should be made public with a detailed investigation. If someone DOES get "wrung thru the ringer" it will be because the "facts" justify it, not opinions, unsubstantiated conclusions, rumors, and inuendo. If we could get some facts, I think we would find that when a horse dies, it is a combination of things, such as two few vet checks, combined with an inexperienced rider, perhaps riding a horse he didn't know, the availability of water, etc. Maybe the vet ran out of IV solution, which would lead to some guidelines about how much a treatment vet should carry. Is this the Vet's fault? Of course not...he has to pick and choose what to carry...but OTHER vets would learn from that. Just deal with it, "suck it up" and move on. Perhaps removing ONE of those factors would have allowed that horse to live. We need to analyze the data not so much to determine how he died, but how we could have SAVED him! The riders are the AERC. I do not feel that the BOD has any rite whatsoever to pass such an arbitrary overreacting constricting rule such as this without allot of discussion, planning, goal stating, and most of all a vote from the members. AERC is to quickly becoming a "them against us" org. the BOD vs the Members. There just can not be such a void, or there will be a split, AERC will loose allot of the oldest members, there will be another endurance organization. You can smirk at that if you like, but it may be closer than you think. The sport will suffer. And outsiders will have even more ammo against the sport. I completely understand the deep desire to find out the WHY's, and support it totally, but no rule will give a person the integrity or desire to contribute. Like it or not, it is a persons rite whether or not to offer their private property up for public scrutiny. That's a matter of opinion, and I respectfully disagree. On your own property in private, yes. If you choose to participate in an Endurance Ride sanctioned by AERC, you give up your right to privacy.....if you're not willing to do that in order to provide valuable information that contributes to the welfare of the horse, DON'T GO! Look how bad the abuse has to be before the Humane Society or Livestock officials step in. Our horses are SOOOO far from that stage that it is ridiculous. Having 9 horses die in one year just AT Endurance rides is far from that? Not in my humble opinion. We are having a very hard time finding a sensible middle ground for AERC to ride in, and we will continue to wrangle our way along. But this 30/15 day rule is just sooo far over reacting in a completely wrong direction. Consider the concequences. We already have the rule and procedures in place, proposed by Dr. Duane Barnett 11/3/2001 and approved by the board on 2/28/2002. The Vet Committee and the BoD are just not following them. Check it out: http://www.aerc.org/Documents/BoardMinutes/Minutes20011103.htm In addtion, note that NO report by the Vet Committee on horse deaths is included in the minutes. The minutes are not a blow-by-blow account of every word said as a court recorder would do, but something so important as the investigation of a horse death, IMHO, should certainly be recorded in the minutes. It's just swept under the rug as tho it never happened! I DO agree with John Parke that the Vet Committee Report should be published in EN. Note that there is NOTHING in Dr. Barnett's motion that specifies that the information collected "be held confidential", wheras there IS a confidentiality clause in John Parke's motion. I urge the BoD NOT to approve the Parke motion as written because of the confidentially statements. As Scott pointed out, the problem is there is no "penalty" for failing to comply and the data is dropped into a "black hole" under the guise of "confidentiality". NOTHING should be confidential when a horse dies at a ride. As Howard pointed out, let's "crawl" before we walk. Let's not worry about 15 days after or 30 days after now....let's just try for the ones AT a ride. Jim, Sun of Dimanche, and Mahada Magic =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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