Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Question:  How can we better protect our horse.
Response Desired:  Good ideas as part of a brainstorming 
session.

Recent incidents together with facts that I was until 
 recently unaware of convince me that we need to be far 
 more proactive in protecting our horses and sport. 
Facts 
 that disturb me are that: 
 
 -The horses deaths this year may exceed the number last 
 year -- and last year was regarded as an anomolous high 
 year
 -Over 15% of the horses at the recent Pan Ams had to be 
 treated with IVs and one horse died (this is consistent 
 with performances at other similar competitions in past 
 year and in my opinion is unacceptable).
 -According to a recent post on ride camp, 6 out of the 
top 
 10 life-time mileage riders in our sport have lost 
horses 
 to ride-related deaths.  (I have not verified this fact 
 nor done the statistical analysis of expectations but 
even 
 if this is close to the truth, it is disturbing to me.)
 
 My hypothesis is to protect our horses, we need to:
 
 1. Better understand what is putting our horses at risk 
 and what are early indicators of problems (please see my 
 column in EN Sept 2003 entitled "We Just Don't Know")
 
 2. Better educate riders, who have the primary 
 responsibility for the welfare of the horse as well as 
 ride managers and ride vets and what can be done to 
 prevent problems
 
 3. Develop better procedures to govern our sport. 
 ??Unfortunately there will be people in the sport who 
are 
 unobservant, uncaring, or ignorant.  And even caring, 
 eduated riders may make judgment mistakes in the heat of 
 competition or when tired late in a ride.
 
 I believe that to take action on the ideas above is the 
 right thing to do.  Moreover in today's society if we do 
 not take appropriate action, then others less favorable 
to 
 the sport may force action upon us.  So the hard job is 
 deciding what actions are appropriate and will serve the 
 goals of protecting the horse and protecting the sport 
of 
 endurance riding.
 
 I believe we should start by an electronic brainstorming 
 session where we get as many ideas out on the table as 
 possible without being judgmental.  We then can do the 
 critical analysis.  I will be happy to catalog the ideas 
 presented. 
 
 For each of these items we need to consider the "what 
"and the 
 "how".  For example on education we need to decide what 
we 
 need to teach people and then what the best way to reach 
 people with the information. 
 
 Note that I have assumed we do have a problem that we 
need 
 to address.  The folks that I have talked to agree.   If 
 there are others who do not agree, then whether there is 
a 
 problem to be addressed or not probably also deserves 
 discussion.
 
 Stagg Newman

 
 
 

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