Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Ranelle Rubin wrote:
> So, Sandy it sounds like you are of the opinion that if the FEI riders 
> do harm to their horses, it will cause those of us who don't to somehow 
> loose the freedom to ride? I am not sure I understand, and obviously 
> have missed something in the conversations about this. Please enlighten 
> me. I really want to know..I am not being sarcastic here..honestly.

The thinking goes like this:

AERC supports FEI Endurance with money and personnel.  John Q Public will 
assume we do this because we want to further the goals of FEI.  The fact 
that what we want to further may be the development of better horses or the 
promulgation of more International events is immaterial.  People will see 
us as supporting FEI.

Fast forward to 2012 or whenever FEI style endurance debuts as a new, 
Olympic discipline.  While millions of viewers all over the world watch, 9 
out of every 10 horses in the endurance event fail to complete, two or 
three die on camera in beautiful, dying color and then it comes to light a 
few weeks later that another 10 or 20 participants have died or been put 
down.  All those kids who grew up loving horses, most never actually owning 
one, can't believe that these wonderful creatures are so dispensable.  THEN 
they discover that we have, right here in the good old US of A, an 
organization called AERC that gives money to the people who promote this 
carnage.  In fact, this AERC group runs poor defenseless horses 100's of 
miles every month, sometimes as much as 100 miles in just one day!  Horses 
by the thousands need veterinary treatment.  They are lamed, run to the 
point of exhaustion and then quickly taken home where they can die, out of 
sight, alone, forsaken.

Clearly this is a job for Super Senator, aka Barbara Boxer, who brings to 
the Senate floor a resolution condemning the cruel and inhumane "sport" of 
Endurance, equating it to that Mexican contest where horses are raced and 
thrown violently to the ground and mentioning that every year several 
horses are brutally killed at the Omak Endurance Race (actually it's the 
Omak Suicide Race but hey, Babs wants to nail Endurance so it suits her 
strategy to paint Omak as endurance).  The resolution passes overwhelmingly 
and flushed with success, SS BB drafts legislation outlawing any so-called 
sporting competition where horses are stressed beyond what they might 
naturally suffer in the wild if that stress lasts more than 15 minutes 
(that to keep all the $$$$racing alive as well as not piss off the 
$$$$hunter/jumper types).

Does that help make our concerns a little clearer?

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