Joe said:
> While I do believe that our continued association with
> the abuses of Region VII is the biggest threat to the
> AERC's future, I can see that airing that dirty laundry
> in public is a threat as well.
Personally, I do not believe that the AERC’s continued association with the abuses of Region VII is the biggest threat to the AERC’s future. Nor do I think that airing that dirty laundry in public is either.
I think that the biggest threat to the AERC’s future lies much closer to home. The biggest threat to the AERC’s future lies in the loss of trail access. Land managers where AERC rides are held do not care about what is going on in Dubai, nor do they care that a handful of Americans go there to participate, nor do they care that on paper the AERC has a relationship with USEF, who has a relationship with the FEI, who has a relationship with the UAE, or that a handful of horses are dying in a foreign country on the other side of the world.
Land managers care what AERC riders do on their own lands at AERC rides. And what some AERC riders are doing at AERC rides is running amok: They shove each other and other trail users off the trail, they turn their horses loose, their horses run out into traffic and cause traffic accidents, they ride their horses into people standing on the ground, they let their horses skitter around uncontrollably, and they consider all these things to be a joke. All of these things have happened at AERC rides and neither ride managers nor the AERC itself has done anything about it. John Crandell put it very well in his blog on the subject. He said, “No picking on novice riders with their horses bouncing around in panic here! Just get on and giggle.” It is isn't just novice riders, even some experienced riders have horses bouncing around in panic; no picking on them either.
Not only does the AERC not doing anything about such things, it has even given a lifetime achievement award to a man and his horse who spent 20 years letting the horse regularly get away from him and run loose in camp…making a joke about how unmanageable the horse was while giving the award instead of recognizing that ANY loose horse is a dangerous menace. Darolyn Butler spent upwards of 20 years inadequately restraining her horses and letting them run loose in camp, and despite multiple complaints over the years nobody was willing to do anything about it until other people's horses got killed (although, I bet if it had been people and not horses that got killed at that event, the AERC would not have required her to take financial responsibility for that but instead would have helped her to argue that horses running loose in camp is typical of AERC rides so she shouldn't have any responsibility for letting that happen).
Not only do ride managers do nothing about such things, some of them even publish statements acknowledging that they actively discourage any participants from making official complaints about dangerous behavior.
In the 2103 Tevis Forum there was a message from the VP of the WSTF Board of Governors: "I am writing this article because during the 2012 Tevis Ride there were several instances of riders blocking the trail. One case was a violation of the Tevis sportsmanship rules, and in the second case, A DANGEROUS SITUATION WAS CREATED FOR BOTH HORSES AND RIDERS." [emphasis added] Outcome: "Fortunately, tempers calmed and no complaint was ultimately filed. Riders need to realize that ride officials are obligated to investigate these types of complaints..." [Hint, hint, please don't complain because then we will have to do something about it...but the first thing we will do about it is try to convince you not to complain. Because "...reasonable minds prevailed in this case..." i.e. the complainers were talked out of their complaints before we actually had to do something about it.]
So there you have it, somebody creates a dangerous situation for both horses and riders on a narrow, single-track trail on a ride that has a history of people and horses falling off of it and horses falling to their deaths...but the policy of the governing body is to talk anybody who dares to bring a specific instance to their attention out of making an official complaint because then they might have to actually do something about it.
No land manager in their right mind would allow such an event to occur on a trail where there is the possibility that there will be other users. There are too many endurance riders who don’t know how to share a trail, and there are too many ride managers who won’t tell such people to put their horses back in the trailer and go home. And if they do and the rider files a protest, the AERC won’t support the ride manager in that decision because such behavior is "typical" of endurance riders (after all, the AERC even gives prizes to people who habitually let their horses run loose in camp).
It is this kind of behavior that I consider to be the biggest threat to the future of the AERC, not anything that foreigners are doing in the deserts of the Middle East.
The continued complaints by the AERC about what is going on in the UAE reminds me very much of a quote from Mark Twain: "To do good is noble. To tell others to do good is even nobler and much less trouble." It is much less trouble for the AERC to tell USEF and the FEI that they ought to do something about all the abuses in UAE endurance than it is for the AERC to actually do something about the abuses right here at home.
I am aware that there are some people on the AERC's Board of Directors who are trying to address this growing problem with AERC rides and AERC riders; Susan Kasemeyer even mentioned it recently in one of her Vice President's messages, but they are met with substantial resistance. However, if it tries, the AERC is likely to have more success at fixing its own problems than any of the FEI's. But, like the FEI, in order to fix its problems, first it must acknowledge them.
The whole UAE thing is nothing more than an irrelevant distraction.
kat
Orange County, Calif.
:|
us on our Aerc issues at home than elsewhere
No argument with focusing on home issues, but that does not preclude doing the right thing and refusing to associate with those who neither follow our lead, nor listen to us.
Ed
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Lets review the past number of years. There is an outcry and the BOD ignored it. Then at some point after drugs were discovered and enough horses abused with some killed - the AERC BOD finally wrote a letter to the FEI which looked more like apologizing for actually writing them the letter. The AERC BOD crawled back in their hole pulling the cover over their eyes again. Then more horse abuse in international and AERC BOD writes another vanilla letter. Nothing happened but a rebuttal telling the AERC - we got this handled trust us.Now it is up to us the membership to demand action from our BOD or to replace them with someone that will take action. We can’t complain about not taking a stand on international while electing the same people that didn’t take action.Folks it is up to the members - to force the BOD to take the appropriate action. If the members don’t they cannot blame the BOD they can only blame themselves.Truman--"It is hard to fight an enemy who has outpost in your head." - Sally Kempton
On Jan 20, 2018, at 17:15, Ed & Wendy Hauser <ra...@sisuwest.us> wrote:On 1/20/2018 10:38 AM, Nicole Chappell wrote:
us on our Aerc issues at home than elsewhereNo argument with focusing on home issues, but that does not preclude doing the right thing and refusing to associate with those who neither follow our lead, nor listen to us.
Ed
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Lets review the past number of years. There is an outcry and the BOD ignored it. Then at some point after drugs were discovered and enough horses abused with some killed - the AERC BOD finally wrote a letter to the FEI which looked more like apologizing for actually writing them the letter. The AERC BOD crawled back in their hole pulling the cover over their eyes again. Then more horse abuse in international and AERC BOD writes another vanilla letter. Nothing happened but a rebuttal telling the AERC - we got this handled trust us.Now it is up to us the membership to demand action from our BOD or to replace them with someone that will take action. We can’t complain about not taking a stand on international while electing the same people that didn’t take action.Folks it is up to the members - to force the BOD to take the appropriate action. If the members don’t they cannot blame the BOD they can only blame themselves.Truman
--"It is hard to fight an enemy who has outpost in your head." - Sally Kempton
On Jan 20, 2018, at 17:15, Ed & Wendy Hauser <ra...@sisuwest.us> wrote:
On 1/20/2018 10:38 AM, Nicole Chappell wrote:
us on our Aerc issues at home than elsewhereNo argument with focusing on home issues, but that does not preclude doing the right thing and refusing to associate with those who neither follow our lead, nor listen to us.
Ed
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