Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Here's some more responses to posts on the Mariposa protest

Question:Going forward - has AERC contacted the rider in question?

A: Both Nick Warhol(W region director) and the treatment vet Jay 
Mero, DVM spent hours with the rider during the treatment.  Both 
felt that the rider had a much better understanding of the 
seriousness of what happened after their discussion.  Both also 
felt that the rider demonstrated sincere remorse about his 
behavior after this understanding.

Q: While not a member, he did attend an AERC santioned ride and 
have a horse treated.  Isn't this something the Welfare of the 
Horse Committee follows up on anyway?  I think this would be an
opportunity to 1) get more information on the health of that horse
post ride and 2) educate said rider regarding conditioning,
pacing, etc.

A:Certainly riders like this can use a lot more education.  It's 
most likely though that they will never return.  Both Nick and Jay 
felt that a significant amount of education was accomplished in 
this case.

Q:Not saying it's the way for us to go, but it seems to be the way 
a lot of other countries handle it. Show us you can do this and 
your horse can do it, and then you can play the game with us.

A:It's possible but there is no data at all to show that 
fatalities, injuries, and treatments are any less under the much 
stricter Australian or any other rules.  AERC is the only 
endurance organization in the world that publicizes its fatality 
rate and enables a deaths per thousand entries to be calculated.
I've been unsuccessful in getting any data to make a useful 
comparison with other organizations.

Q:I feel like  AERC is afraid of law suits, and there may be a 
just reason for concern.

A: Yes - we are.  Small organizations like ours have been 
destroyed by single individuals with money and time to fund 
extensive legal proceedings even if they are not valid.  It's a 
sorry state of affairs when litigation has become so common in our 
country but it is the function of your BoD to do what's possible 
to avoid problems that could destroy the organization.  That 
doesn't mean that we don't do anything to provide a safe 
environment for our horse - it means that we have to have clear, 
enforceable, and legally defensible positions in what we do.

Q:Why wasn't this rider stopped at the vet check?

A: First - the horse was OK at the vet check and passed the exam 
in reasonable shape.  It took the horse longer to come down as he 
was a relatively unconditioned QH but not excessively so.

The rider came into the vet check without any idea what to do as 
it was his first ride.  A volunteer offered to help the rider, 
showed him how to cool down his horse and what he had to do 
concerning P&R, vet cards, and the vet exam.  He mentored the 
rider through the vet check.  The vets passed the horse and there 
was no apparent problem.

It's between the vet check and the finish where the rider caused 
the problem.  The person who mentored the rider in the check 
believes that "I can win this" took over and that's what caused 
the serious horse abuse.

There's no question that the rider over-rode(sp?) his horse in the 
period between the check and where they stopped on the trail and 
treatment was started.  This was out of camp before the finish.

Several riders who passed him on the trail came into camp and 
reported the situation to the ride manager and Nick Warhol(the W 
region AERC director).  I think they felt it better to report the 
situation and get a vet on the way than to try to stop the rider 
using physical means.

From this - it's clear that the vets did their job at the vet 
check.  The horse was not over-ridden at that point and there was 
no obvious reason to pull the horse.



I doubt that I've answered every question on this protest.  It's 
been a difficult one for the P&G committee.  As I've said earlier 
- some feel the penalty was far too little and others think it was 
too harsh.

I believe that incidents like this are very few in the roughly 
22,000 entries each year.  I'd like to do more if we can but AERC 
is not a policing organization.  It would fundamentally change the 
character of our organization if we attempted that.

This year has had an unusually high number of protests.  There's 
another protest involving horse abuse by two AERC members and the 
decision on that will be published in EN in a future issue.

Mike




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