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[RC] The "not-so-good" old days - heidiGot to reminiscing after I answered Howard's post.... My "icon" of the not-so-good old days when 25s were sanctioned for points is a picture that will be burned in my brain until the day I die. I can name the rider, but I won't. (He doesn't ride anymore anyway.) The Great Points Chase was on. The ride was held near Vale, Oregon, and it was hotter 'n Hades. (And those of you who don't think we have humidity in the West have never ridden one of those hot days down in the Snake River Canyon...) This rider smoked the 25--the ride time was 1:09. (Yeah, the course might have been short--but not THAT short!!) The horse spent the afternoon under a shade tree painfully shifting from leg to leg, with both forelimbs in support wraps because of bilateral bows. He was also in metabolic trouble, and was on IVs. That evening, this beautiful grey horse loaded up in a trailer for home, and none of us ever saw him again. Too bad--I had ridden many enjoyable miles alongside this horse, and he didn't need to end this way. This horse may have been the extreme example, but it was the ongoing repetition of similar scenarios that made caring vets and horsemen and board members act. Had this horse been an isolated case, one might have just labeled his rider as a bad apple and tried to keep an eye on him. But it was the commonness of this sort of picture that caused AERC to pull the plug on sanctioned rides of distances under 50 miles. Just thought perhaps it might make more of an impression spelled out as a case report, so that folks aren't tempted to repeat the mistakes of the past--which is what too often happens if one does not study one's history. Heidi ============================================================ I still prefer what it is that BH100, Tevis, The Duck's Soup of Endurance, etc. has to offer...but, to see a horse canter over sand for those distances...Good Lord, it humbles me. ~ Frank Solano ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
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