Re: Some statistics from the Rider/Horse History on-line and Pull Data

["Ed & Wendy Hauser" <sisufarm@mmmpcc.org>]

My point is that statistics should be collected, and published, but enough
detail also collected to make them useful.

For example, lets assume that 10 (to pick an easy number) per 100 horses are
pulled for metabolic reasons, and that of these 10, 5 need IV fluids.  The
next year a better criteria for monitoring horses is used (for instance the
horses are all weighed and pulled at 6% dehydration).  This change results
in 15 pulls, only one of which needs an IV.  Just tracking pulled, metabolic
might lead to the conclusion that more horses were in trouble, when in
actual fact the horses  were better cared for and in less trouble.

A year or so ago somewhere the statement was made that even with more
stringent criteria, we were still pulling 15% of horses just like in the old
days.  That may be true, but I expect that there were many more horses in
real trouble 20 years ago.  The "statistics", just don't show it, because
they are not collected properly.

I'm not sure how much detail ride vets can go into in their reports.  Ours
surely don't have much time.  But we should be careful that data collected
is complete enough to be useful.

Ed and Wendy Hauser
1140 37th St.
Hudson, WI 54016
sisufarm@mmmpcc.org