A Cautionary Tale

Carol Claridge

The Maple Valley Ride in September every year is always well organised and a wonderful place to camp with our equine friends and renew friendships old and new, thanks to the continued planning of Di Lindblad. This has always meant a lot to us as we still consider ourselves as newcomers to a wonderful sport that is still being enjoyed by so many of the original members.

Something happened at this particular ride that makes us remember what a sense of humanity the members, family and friends of OCTRA have. Heather was riding her 17 year old Arab. At the 39 mile mark, he cut open his leg. Another truck was pit crewing there and offered extra towels to help stop the bleeding. Someone else offered a leg wrap. The family that lived in the house at the water stop offered to put the horse in the barn and brought their own horse in to keep him company. Towels were offered along with a great amount of compassion and encouragement, while I left them and went to bring the trailer.

Back at base camp, he received 7 stitches to close the nasty gash in his leg. It took a long time to heal because it couldn't be bandaged and the stitches ripped out. This was a hard lesson to learn. The reason he was injured was because I LEFT THE TAILGATE DOWN. I had never left it down before; someone else needed water and I dropped it to climb in. What happened next is history. The horse came too close. A water jug was thrown onto the ground and the horse jumped. This lesson hopefully will not have to be learned by another rider.

Every time I see a tailgate down, I tell this story, so please keep safety in mind while pit crewing because Murphy's Law is always waiting to rear it's ugly head.

So, to all of you considerate, compassionate people, thank you once again. (The drug testing was still continued for him, and adjusted to the amount of mileage that he completed. It was really a benefit to get this information and the time required to present the horse for testing was minimal. Heather was able to meet with Gayle at the Research Centre to go over the data. Gayle's efforts at bringing this level of testing to our sport is very encouraging and deserves our support.)

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