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This is the letter that was sent to all horse size Freedom Collar owners of record informing them of a failure of a Freedom Collar trace attachment. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. If you would like to upgrade your collar, you need to have it returned to me by Feb 15, 2008 in order to participate in the upgrade offer. Mini Freedom Collars are not affected by this recall.
October 23, 2007 Dear Freedom Collar owner, This letter is to inform you of an upgrade to the Camptown Freedom Collar and to give you the opportunity to upgrade your collar if you choose to do so. As all of you know, I am very blunt and honest about things. In June of this year, a very large pair of warmbloods became hooked on a post in a hazard at Bromont after impacting the post dead on, which resulted in the pole popping up and hooking a pole strap over the very large post. In an effort to free them without putting a groom down, the driver tried to jerk the horses backwards off of the post. Upon the third, hard, jerk, the outside trace attachment on the Freedom Collars let loose. I got the collars back and conducted some testing on them which included pulling a small car up and down hills and around corners with the collar and trace that had not failed, which the collar did without any problem. I considered this failure to be essentially the result of an accident and not the fault of the harness. After lengthy discussion with several drivers of national renown, it was decided that Camptown would start reinforcing the pair collars with nylon under the composite material, but that the stress put upon a single harness was very different and it was not necessary to reinforce those also. This last weekend Suzy Stafford was driving a single horse at Fair Hill. She was driving a steep grade in the water hazard and the trace attachment on the Freedom Collar failed. At least two other drivers drove the same marathon in Freedom Collars without incident. Shelly Temple drove the World Pony Championships marathon in hers. There were 4 that just drove the advanced course at Lexington which required multiple steep pulls in the water hazard. There are approximately 250 Freedom Collars in use at this time. Two have been in accidents on marathons without failing. This is the only incident involving a Freedom Collar failure. I have not seen the collar yet so I cannot tell you what I think happened and I may never know. The stitching did not fail on the collar, the composite material broke loose. Out of an abundance of caution, we are going to start reinforcing the single Freedom Collars in the same manner we had started reinforcing the pair’s collars in June. This reinforcement involves putting a layer of thick, 10,000 lb. breaking strength nylon sandwiched in between the top layer and the lining pad for the trace stitching to also go through. We are also looking at separating the neck strap uptugs from the trace attachment. This letter is to inform you of what has happened and to give you the opportunity to upgrade your existing collar to a reinforced one for a nominal fee of $50, which includes shipping. If you would like to exchange your collar, please return the collar only (you can keep the neckstrap, falsemartingale and neck connector strap) to me along with a check or other form of payment and we will return to you a new, identical, but reinforced collar. Please do not hesitate to call me if you have any questions. 800-717-0957 Sincerely, Marjean McIntyre |