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Re: [RC] Endurance - FEI - glass houses? - Diane TrefethenSteph Teeter wrote:There were 10 horse fatalities related to AERC endurance events in 2006. (or perhaps 7 - I'm not postitive on the number). Even at 7 this is more in ONE year than the last TEN years of WEC's. Are you being deliberately or accidently misleading? You imply that dying at an AERC ride is much more likely than at a WEG. According the WHC, there have been 24 fatalities out of 67,000 starts in the last 3 years, 15 of those endurance-related. Going back to 1998, there have been 5 WEC/WEGs with a total of 788 starters. I was able to locate only one report of horse fatalities, 2 horses dying at the 2002 WEG (anyone have more info on horse fatalities related to WEC/WEGs?). Assuming these were the only horses to die at or withing 6 weeks of a WEC/WEG, that means that at AERC rides, .022% or about 1 in 4465 starts died while at WEC/GS, .25%, 1 in 394 starts, the equivalent of about 11.3 in 4465 starts died, more than 11 times as many horses as at AERC rides. Looked at another way, even if not one more WEC/G horse dies, assuming the number of participants in WEC/Gs remains relatively stable, in order to equal the low death rate at AERC rides, FEI will need to run 85 more deathless WEGs spanning 170 years. But all this is irrelevant because your comments vis-a-vis the relative the statistics on fatalities in AERC vs WEG rides are Red Herrings. The issue of concern isn't who is worse. It is how we can expect the American public and politicians to react when they see a horse or horses die on television during an Olympic Endurance race and then see that a substantial percentage of the starters wind up on iv's. Using the recent Horse Slaughter resolution as a paradigm, it isn't hard at all to imagine that first the animal rights/welfare groups will set up a hue and cry over this inhumane and cruel sport, followed shortly by zealous, vote-seeking, I-am-a-friend-to-all-animals politicos proposing legislation to outlaw Endurance in the United States. THAT is what is scary. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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