Re: RC: Montana accident

[jlong@mti.net (Joe Long)]

On Mon, 20 Sep 1999 21:32:21 -0600, "Dot Wiggins"
<dotwgns@ruralnetwork.net> wrote:

...
>This was an ACCIDENT  guys.  Don't make it worse please.

AMEN to that.  It was unfortunate that the first reports on Ridecamp
were second-hand, and apparently inaccurate.  I know from personal
experience that stories about an incident at a ride can be distorted
beyond recognition, particularly if someone doing the telling has an
axe to grind.  For example, a story once went around that I'd galloped
past a fallen rider hollering "can't stop now, the riders behind me
are too close" when in fact I stopped to help, caught the fallen
rider's horse for him, and the fallen rider then went on to beat me.

Racing, including all-out sprints to the finish line, is an integral
part of our sport.  It is ride management's responsibility to provide
a safe area for the sprint and a safe pull-up area, but ride managers
also have to live with the "lay of the land" -- and things happen
which are beyond their control.  I spent five days in a hospital once
with a life-threatening injury when a balky horse backed into my path
as I was sprinting, 100 yards from the finish line.  Kahlil is one
level-headed and controllable endurance horse, but even he ran away
once at the finish of a 100 mile ride!

I've had close calls, too, with unexpected vehicles in the road ahead
of a finish line, and have had friends have some very close calls over
the same problem, including jumping over the hood of a pickup truck!

It sounds to me like these riders tried to make the best of a bad
situation and that it was just bad luck that a pedestrian was run
down.  No, I wasn't there, but from the accounts I've read they should
IMO not have lost their placings, and don't deserve the blame and
scorn that has been written here.

-- 

Joe Long
jlong@mti.net
http://www.mti.net     Business
http://www.rnbw.com    Personal


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