ridecamp@endurance.net: [endurance] Animal rights / welfare

[endurance] Animal rights / welfare

rsantana@ucdmc.ucdavis.edu
Thu, 26 Oct 95 14:55:35 +0900

Hello all,
I started this argument I suppose so I should at least stay with it!
I mentioned the viewing of this forum by animal welfare people, I also meant animal
rights whackos! I know that these groups are monitoring every animal sporting event and
they have caused a great deal of trouble for AERC sanctioned rides in some areas. In fact the
world championships in Holland last year had protesters present.
I brought this up in response to a letter about the Kansas endurance ride event, and
the fact that the animals that participated seemed to have a bad day. There appeared to be
several accidents that ended in the rider getting injured but no mention is made of the
animals whose welfare is often ignored when a person is hurt. I have read many news articles
where a horse has crashed on the course causing severe injury to the rider (be it a track race
or an endurance race) and no mention is made of the welfare of the horse.
I guess I'm too much of a bleeding heart, and having lost 2 horses to endurance I know what
it is like to care for a horse and watch it die. Neither of these deaths was due to abuse,
over riding, or negligence on our part. BUT, I feel that someone else may look at our sport
and see horses get hurt, die, or be abused by their owner/rider, and make judgements that the
horses should not be made to do this sport and get it outlawed for all!
Most of us love this sport and love our horses too. I think we need to do a better job
at educating the unintiated, the beginner, and the ignorant who would either make the sport
look cruel, or attempt to shut it down altogether.
So when we get reports of accidents, let's tell the world that the animal is alright
or not. Even if the horse dies, it would let everyone else know that we do care for our
horses, and put to rest some of the debate over cruelty.
I am a very causious rider and don't ask for top performance from a horse that isn't ready
to go the distance with something left to spare. The horses that died did so because of
extenuating circumstances. On had a congentially bad blood vessel that had a slow leak, she
bled to death after many days of treatment, our vet coudn't find the problem to treat her,
the other died from exhaustive syndrome and it wasn't ridden very far into a ride..the vet at
the ride thought the horse looked ok but my wife pulled herself because she knew something
was wrong. The horse went into kidney failure, came out of it, then began to founder badly,
after 2 weeks of treatment in 105+ weather. We don't know for sure but we think the horse
was poisoned by a bad water at the ride (several horses became ill on that one in 1984).
It is very painful for Janet (my wife) to talk about either horse but we do so that
others can learn and avoid any mistakes we made. But let it be known we were not ignorant,nor
beginners, and we did not push those horses beyond their ability.

Ray Santana
UC Davis Medical Center
Network Operations
rtsantana@ucdavis.edu