I had a much different post drafted last week, before the Tevis 2024 ride got underway. It was a much more navel gazey post, mostly focused on my own goals and process. I happen to know at least one of the riders involved in the incidents I'll be including below, so I'm going to attempt to do this with as much respect and empathy as I can muster, while still addressing the concerns that have popped up in a problem solving manner. Any mistake I make in tone, I apologize for causing any further hurt for those already suffering. Always first is empathy for those who've lost, those who tried to help, those who had to witness and were effected by such events.
As an EHS professional, my old boss once told me, "We can't be the ones running around like chickens with our heads off, screaming about the sky falling. We pull the facts, we pull the procedures and requirements, all with as little emotion and as much steadfastness as possible. EHS folks are the calm ones in the storm." Paraphrased, of course, but the main sentiment stands. Starting with the facts (something I did use Copilots help for, as math is not my strong suit), these figures are as accurate as I could pull from a few sources (AERC, Tevis Cup website, and this article from 2020). Including 2024 preliminary entries, there have been 11,198 horse and rider teams entered into the Tevis Cup (does not account for those who signed up but didn't start). As far as I can officially find, there have been 5 recorded equine fatalities recorded for Tevis, 2 in 2024, 1 in 2022, 1 in 2003, and one in a prior year. Running these numbers through the equation Fatality Rate = (Fatalities/Entrants) x 100 gets us a fatality rate of 0.04% (feel free to check the math). By any measure even the most stringent care to name, that's a low number!
What I wasn't able to find (at least, not yet) were official incident reports and corrective actions for each fatality. The following is based on what I can gleam from the Tevis Cup website and social media posts by those directly involved. Three of the five equine fatalities were due to falls, though were not caused by any feature totally unique to the Tevis Cup. Even the most seasoned of trail horses spook, for reasons the human may never understand. The Tevis Cup as a whole is the toughest endurance experience (in America), but the features of the Tevis trail (heat, length, elevation, steep trails, time limits) are not confined to Tevis. Each of those features can be trained and prepared for in various ways, but horses being horses will always be a factor.
There have been countless hours volunteered by experts in the Western States Trail dedicated to ensuring both the Tevis Cup and the Western States Run are handled, prepared and supported as much as is feasible. There have been calls to change the ride even further, addressed below.
- Move the date of the ride, in order to avoid the heat.
- This is unworkable due to the region the trail heads over. Too early in the year and there is still snow and ice on the trail, which means volunteers can't clear trail effectively and teams would be trying to navigate over even more treacherous footing; any later and you again run the risk of snow and ice, shorter daylight and ever increasing smoke from wildfires.
- Change the trail, either by massive engineering or rerouting.
- Also unworkable, again due to the region, there are only so many routes available over the Sierras, even for horses; the money required to re-engineer the most treacherous areas is unattainable and heavy equipment is not allowed in the wilderness areas; and historical value and the thousands of teams who have successfully navigated the current trail must be noted.
- The horses don't have a choice to be traveling such technical trails!
- Anyone that's spent any time with an endurance horse knows they absolutely tell us if they want to be motoring down the trails…or not. You can't spend thousands of training miles and hours with another being and not learn their preferences, their mode of travel, their reactions to everything a trail can throw at them. Tevis is an elite competition, and those that toe the starting line, horse and human alike are as prepared and supported as possible for the challenge ahead.
That any horse should die while engaging in a sport is a shock; it's even more a shock for endurance folks as it happens so rarely. Each incident is of course a time for empathy, for reflection, for further care and consideration of our incredible partners in this sport. For those folks who are the most stringent that "something must change!", the question boils down to, are any deaths unacceptable? If so, does that mean ending the Tevis Cup, and endurance as a sport, specifically? Does 0.04% of deaths (just for Tevis, not even endurance as a whole) erase the success of thousands of teams who meet the challenge, or who safely pull and live to ride another day? To go deeper, is striving for such a challenge, knowing the risks involved, however slight, not a worthy aspiration? I would argue one of the main draws of endurance is the test, whichever version of that you choose, of you and your equine partner pitting your preparation against the trail and the elements involved. Tevis takes that ethos to the pinnacle of the sport.
To change course and speak only to my own opinions now, my heart absolutely goes out to those teams who lost, to those who struggled and needed extra support, and compassion for those who witnessed such incidents. As someone who has lost a horse in a wrenching, sudden and tragic way, I understand the guilt, the questioning, the fear of it happening again. It took me months of grieving and compassion from my friends and wider circle to even contemplate owning another horse again, and I didn't have the eyes of the world on me as I struggled. I did notice that quite a few of the most stringent voices on social media through the weekend were either not horse folks at all, or not heavily involved in endurance. As one friend said so well, I don't believe you have to have x amount of experience to have an opinion, and even more so when fatalities are involved given the "sports social license to operate" being possibly at risk. The response to such comments and opinions cannot be rooted in "It's not your place", but rather, a defensible love letter to our sport. Yes, the sport can be engaged in safely and successfully, all the teams that have successfully met the Tevis challenge, and all other endurance rides, stand testament to that. Yes, this is a worthy endeavor, and yes, we can always listen to calls to improve, within the limits given. I myself cannot wait to hit the next trail with my eagle eyed mare, and I'm taking steps to set us on our own path to Tevis someday. If we love this sport, as we do, we ride and prepare and support it as best we are able, and that means the other humans around us too.
Endurance.
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