One of my many goals upon becoming President of the board of directors of AERC was to bring out into daylight many of the items that I perceived had been previously swept under the rug. In my attempt to achieve one part of this, I first asked about endurance-related horse injuries and deaths at AERC rides. I know that there have been some very public deaths at major events overseas, but before I started throwing stones I wanted to find out what is really going on here at home.

The first thing I found out was that our statistics were not very consistently recorded. Moreover, I found out that the statistics previously gathered only included most horses which died during a ride or while still at the ride camp. The board could not make educated decisions based on this inadequate data. They needed to know about any horse that got into trouble which could in any way be attributed to the sport of endurance. Investigations into every such case were instituted immediately.

I do not like the answers that I have received. I find that the blissful ignorance of the past decades did not prepare me for what we are finding. Some people have said that there are many more injuries and deaths the past couple of years than ever before. That is not what we are finding--it is that we are now documenting these cases as was never done before. Keep in mind that enduranceÕs horse death statistics, even when opening the viewfinder as wide as possible, still are dramatically lower than in race horses. Endurance's equine death rates are less than 14% of the rate in Thoroughbred racing. I was just hoping for very close to zero, not an "acceptable percentage."

More important, however, is what we do with this new information. Only through understanding the causes of injury and death can we truly prevent their reoccurrence. And while I admire the people who are toiling endlessly to come up with more effective treatments for saving horses, prevention is the ultimate answer. There will be rule changes forthcoming. There will be educational articles. There will be, hopefully, a conscious shift of everyone involved in endurance to focus on the welfare of the horses. Most endurance riders are already there, but some are not. Those are the few that must change in order to save this sport.

Endurance has been my life since before high school. I went to veterinary school so I could vet endurance rides. I do not want endurance to change. But more so I want to be certain that we do everything possible to protect the welfare of our equestrian competitors. I could regret asking such very difficult questions but I do not. Through this knowledge, however painful it may be, we are learning how to be better partners with our equestrian teammates.