First, let me note with amusement your request to send only positive
responses to AERC and negative ones to yourself! I hope the membership at
large is critical enough to catch that implicit bias in response. Rest
assured AERC will get my negative response also.
Secondly, let me list our qualifications for response. My family has
participated successfully in this sport for over 20 years. Our collective
completion rate in the last 10 years is over 90%. That includes several
Tevis rides, several ROCs, and over 20 Old Dominion completions among the
four of us. So we know what we're talking about.
Personally, I will never support your efforts because of this statement you
made: "This event is being put on by endurance RACERS for endurance
RACERS." This sport was never meant to be a race. It is a competition
between you and your horse against that trail on that day. But too many
people are competing against each other, and the greed that this type of
competition instills will kill this sport (and possibly some horses), as it
seems to already be doing. Wendell Robie rode 100 miles in one day just for
the challenging of accomplishing the feat on a horse he believed in. It is
a shame that our society today cannot be self-satisfied with
accomplishment--we must have trinkets instead. But we will spend our $5,000
trinkets and our prize trailers will rust, and then where will we be? We'll
shoot ol' lame Dobbin and pull a youngster out of the field to run for more
transient things that won't last. Shame on us. Shame on you.
Dr. Brenda Ratcliff Baird
We understand you are trying to promote and bring commercial
recogniton and support money into the sport. Who wouldn't want to have the
money and media recognition of grand prix jumping or thoroughbred racing,
but take a look at the consequences of those sports: broken down, drugged
horses covered up and hauled away so that the spectators will not get upset,
and deadly insurance scams to make money on unprofitable jumpers. Do you
REALLY believe the endurance population is immune to these problems?
Remember the old saying "money corrupts". Your letter is little more than a
propaganda ploy to curb the assault that the "technologically literate" are
inflicting upon your scheme. We are the silent majority, but I believe you
will hear us.
Kevin B. Baird