In a message dated 10/30/2003 12:10:45 PM Mountain Standard Time, howard9732@xxxxxxx writes:
we can control the sport. This is why I really do believe it's the only answer
I think your observations, Howard, are very accurate about the nature of our sport and what riders will and will not do while attempting to snatch the brass ring, even if they find themselves being dismounted as they reach for it.
Controlling our sport, as far as I can tell from the hinterlands, (Nebraska, that is), can be done, to a degree. I see our sport as a fluid condition.....you can set up whichever "boundaries", "control mechanisms and machinations" you want. That will be the perimeter, if you will. While contained within those "control mechanisms and machinations" is the fluid environment of living creatures, horses and riders, with their own ideas of how one should navigate the hard footing, the soft footing; the flats, the hills; the heat, the cold of a living environment.
Control mechanisms will act like a water balloon...eventually the boundaries will give way at some heretofore unidentified weak spot and we'll all be standing 'round drippin' wet.
So, EVENTUALLY, it comes back to the rider...
I like some of your ideas Howard, and I think a thoughtful and considerate dialogue, by caring and compassionate horsemen/horsewomen, will eventually pare this thing down to something we can chew on (with our mouths closed, of course) and, ultimately, swallow.
It's been my experience that "only" answers are quite rare and I certainly am not qualified to determined what they are......alone, that is.
The collective "we" can.
---Frank Solano (not Air Force, but retired Navyman...get it...see subject line.)
