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Re: [RC] New Poll up - Joe LongOn Mon, 24 Nov 2003 17:50:50 -0500, Jim Holland <lanconn@xxxxxxx> wrote: Joe Long wrote: Truman, what sand do you have your head buried in? The AERC has ALWAYS worked toward elimination of equine fatalities, ALWAYS had a commitment to make rides safer, has ALWAYS worked to improve vet controls!!!!!!!!!!! Really? You could have fooled me! Until last year, the AERC BOD and the Vet Committee would not even admit to the members that horse deaths even happened and denied them information on the ones that did! I'm getting tired of all this bullshit. That is totally false. What do you hope to gain with a wild claim like that? If there is improvement being made, IMHO, it's happening too damn slow! Better slow improvement than fast ill-considered changes that make things worse!!!! And one more time: if equine deaths at endurance rides are unacceptable, then we must stop having endurance rides. Period. End of story. Because as long as we have endurance rides, there will be some (small) number of equine fatalities ? so if we cannot accept that, we must stop having rides. That¹s what ³unacceptable² means. That's strange. The SE hasn't had a metabolic death in I believe 7 years now? Meanwhile the REST of AERC is up to about 20 in the last two years? You call that "small"? Geeez... It's obvious to the most CASUAL observer from reading posts on Ridecamp that the SE...and SERA...is doing MUCH more on this issue than the other regions...AND AERC, in spite of our sand, heat, humidity, mud, etc. When I was competing in the SE and working with rides and the SERA we had periods of several years without a fatality, a fact I am quite proud of. But there were tragic fatalities in some years, including multiple deaths in a single year. Short-term statistics on low-frequency events don't really mean very much. And a decade is short-term in this issue, and ten is small, yes. Joe, if we keep believing horse deaths are inevitable, then it will be. You go ahead and preach "gloom and doom". I choose not to believe that. "Gloom and doom?" Wow. You know damn well that I've taken the positive side of the issue, including pointing out that the sky is NOT falling. However, I am a realist, and choose to view the world as it is and not a fairy tale. You can "choose" not to believe it, but as long as there are endurance rides in any numbers there will sometimes be fatalaties, both horses and riders (we have had some rider deaths, too, do you know that? One happened in the Southeast). Just as, as long as we drive cars, there will be fatal auto crashes. One more time..."one death is too many"....and like many other members, I will continue to pursue that goal for as long as it takes. One more time, as I have said many times before, "one death is too many." But I don't sensationize the issue and attack anyone who doesn't favor this or that ill-considerd action as a "horse killer" or even "insensitive." There has been far too much bombast, smoke, arm-waving, mud-slinging, chest-beating and hypocrisy spewn out on this list on this issue for too long, most of it from about three people. You aren't helping, and if you really want to help, shut the hell up and try to learn something from those who've actually been working with the problem for a while. -- Joe Long jlong@xxxxxxxx http://www.rnbw.com =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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