Re: [RC] [RC] Kids, ponies and distance riding... Get a grip people - Mary Ann Spencer
Perhaps by making an age restriction, we also loose
the idea this can be a family affair. If there are no youth admitted,
where will the next generation come from. It has been discussed how hard
it is to keep up with the training and the rest of life. What better time
to start than when young and more flexible, in more ways than one? My
youngest, my only daughter, is the only one of my 4 kids who rode
endurance. The boys were just not that interested. She did her first
25 miler at age 10 but did not complete due to the POA she was riding being
pulled for a tendon problem. That nice old mare taught my daughter
to canter and gave her the confident to ride. She is now almost 18 and
works under a 3rd level dressage rider but has not time for endurance.
Maybe later as school really takes up a lot of time too. IN SHORT:
ALL THINGS IN DUE TIME!!!! Happy trails, Mary Ann
Subject: Re: [RC] [RC] Kids, ponies and
distance riding... Get a grip people
> The question gets right back to how would such an
incident be viewed by > a "jury of peers" as to the risk to the AERC and
the responsibility of > the BOD to deal with the risk.
And as
others with more legal smarts than I possess have explained in the past, by
putting a minimum age limit in place, we may actually INCREASE our risk of
being successfully sued, since we would in essence be stating that the
sport is "safe" for children over a certain age. By not having such a
limit, we make no such implied statement.
That said--EVERYTHING in life
is risky. Heck, getting out of bed in the morning is risky. NO
rule written could possibly guarantee that AERC will be free of the risk of
suit. Nonetheless, we keep holding rides because we think it is a
good thing to do, and we simply try to minimize the risk as much as
reasonably possible. Personally, I think the above advice makes a lot
of sense, and in the interests of fiduciary responsibility, I don't think
our BoD should touch an age limit with a 10-foot
pole...
