{"id":75356,"date":"2017-10-12T22:08:05","date_gmt":"2017-10-13T04:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/silverton-cancels-next-years-skijoring-event\/"},"modified":"2017-10-13T04:08:05","modified_gmt":"2017-10-13T04:08:05","slug":"silverton-cancels-next-years-skijoring-event","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/silverton-cancels-next-years-skijoring-event\/","title":{"rendered":"Silverton cancels next year\u2019s skijoring event"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Skijoring
Skijoring in Silverton has been canceled this year because of a pending lawsuit stemming from last year\u2019s event when a horse, spooked by a drone, injured three people.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The annual skijoring race in Silverton has been canceled because of an unsettled lawsuit stemming from last year\u2019s event where three people were run over by a horse spooked by a low-flying drone.<\/p>\n

The decision was first reported in this week\u2019s edition of the Silverton Standard & the Miner. The Silverton Skijoring Committee, which made the decision earlier this week, said: \u201cHopefully we can hold a bigger and better event in 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Attempts to reach event organizer Pete Maisel were unsuccessful Thursday.<\/p>\n

At the event in February, a horse at the starting line became agitated from a drone hovering overhead, which witnesses said sounded like a swarm of bees.<\/p>\n

The horse darted into the crowd, injuring three spectators. One woman suffered a hip injury that required extensive surgery, San Juan County Sheriff Bruce Conrad said at the time it happened.<\/p>\n

Maisel told the Silverton Standard there\u2019s a \u201c$1 million lawsuit against the insurance company I had. We\u2019re covered and the town\u2019s covered. We\u2019re OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

Because the insurance companies are still negotiating, the claim is considered open, and it\u2019s not possible to get the event insured for this year, Maisel said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something we cannot control,\u201d he told the Silverton Standard.<\/p>\n

This would have been the ninth annual skijoring competition. The event is by far the most popular of Silverton\u2019s winter activities and draws hundreds of people to the small mountain town.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the Fourth of July of the winter season, business-wise,\u201d said Silverton Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director DeAnne Gallegos, referring to the town\u2019s well-attended Independence Day celebration.<\/p>\n

Skijoring is a race where skiers hold onto a rope attached to a horse. The animal then pulls the skier through a series of gates and jumps down Silverton\u2019s Blair Street.<\/p>\n

Conrad said he was unable to file criminal charges against the drone\u2019s pilot, Matt Crossett, a Durango resident<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re just not finding any of the charges that might be criminal,\u201d Conrad said. \u201cIf he was 20 feet off the deck and in the horse\u2019s face, then I think I would be charging reckless endangerment, but without that, if you read the wording of the elements of the crime, it\u2019s just not there, and the DA agreed with me on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Conrad said he notified the Federal Aviation Administration of the incident. The Durango Herald has submitted multiple federal open-records requests to find out if the FAA charged Crossett, but those requests have been continually denied.<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pending lawsuit over February drone incident prevents organizers from getting insurance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":75357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13,28,327],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-75356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-silverton"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75356"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=75356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}