People don't think it will happen to them.
Also, the cost to the health service/government/ACC — they are not little mishaps.
It gets frustrating seeing so many people not wearing helmets when cycling or wearing them over their handlebars. Really going to save their head there, right?
S. TYLER
Aramoho
Easy rider
Re Letter from Margaret Harold, March 29:
What Margaret sees and what I see from the photo of the bucking pinto horse are different. She sees an animal in pain and discomfort, due to the flank strap cinched around the horse's belly.
I see a horse in discomfort, but not pain. His ears are relaxed, there is no white of eye showing, there are no stress wrinkles around his muzzle. His mane has been trimmed, washed and brushed, so he is used to being handled.
He is jumping up into a buck, but he's also giving the cowboy an easy ride. I would not be surprised to find out that he has been retired now! The flank strap is padded and is easy to release as soon as he and rider have parted company.
I am not a regular attender of rodeos, but I have never seen the injuries to calves she describes. The calves I have seen roped scramble to their feet when released and trot away.
Usually a representative of the SPCA is present. Any broken bones are usually the rider's. Those who ride bulls are, quite simply, very brave. A horse will not step on you if he can avoid it, but a bull will come at you with head lowered and weight on his knees.
I can understand the misunderstanding of those who have rarely been close to or handled large animals like horses and cattle.
But please listen to those who have.
SARA DICKON
NZ Pony Club Instructor, 14 years, to B Certificate level, Upper Atiamuri Pony Club, and Te Marua Pony Club
Feeding crocs
Both local government and national government have been doing appeasement to all sorts of radical and other groups for some time now. I don't think they have ever read Winston Churchill's quote, but their actions certainly appear to act out Winston's words: "An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."
The coastal claims now going through the courts and government are a classic example, which — if the claimants have their way — will leave us so much poorer as a nation. The attempt locally to rename Queen's Park is another.
While Bob Jones was a bit blunt with his suggestion of a "thank you day", if we don't work together for a better New Zealand for all — instead of fighting over ownership and the past — we will destroy this nation while the appeasers head overseas with their/our wealth.
Time to return to a New Zealand Day, which cannot be Waitangi Day because it is now a well-established part of the grievance industry.
TERRY O'CONNOR
Whanganui
Madcap scheme
Is there no end to the stupidity of Horizons? Why should some pensioner have his rates increased to subsidise a house owner in Anzac Parade to lift or shift?
Having wasted tens of thousands on a madcap stopbank scheme they are now suggesting that the people who bought houses on Anzac Parade, didn't know that river periodically floods, or were not told.
From the same Chronicle article (April 3): At Balgownie, "Horizons propose to close off a large gap in the stopbanks if QWest moves and no longer needs river access". So, at present that stopbank is useless.
I suggest Horizons looks for people who are practical and stop wasting ratepayers' money.
P. SMITH
Wanganui
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