Re: RC: Really? Who is responsible here?

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated Fri, 3 Aug 2001  2:57:28 AM Eastern Daylight Time, guest@endurance.net writes:

> carla lawson robcarla@bellsouth.net
> Scenario 3 Kids horse goes down with abcess foot. <snip> 
> After the mare
> went down, the attending show farrier numbed or "froze" the foot. The Kid
> and parents were told by The Equine Specailist over the State of Kentucky
> that the mare would be okay to compete and the kid was able to ride the
> required 15 minutes of drill team. When the mare came out she went down a
> second time. that the mare was okay to ride for the drill exercise
> previously before the competition. YES THE EQUINE SPECAILIST!!

This is the sort of stuff that keeps me sold on endurance.  I can remember attending a seminar dealing with problems specific to cutting horses at a national veterinary continuing education meeting.  The gist of the seminar was that we as clinicians should be drugging these young horses training for futurities so that they won't hurt from their injuries, because "the trainers are gonna ride them anyway."  The presenter of the seminar (a prominent veterinarian involved in cutting competition himself) described how we could numb injured ligaments in the pelvic area with a 6" needle on these futurity babies, so that they would "respond" properly to "training" when they were hurting.  I sat with another endurance vet at the seminar, and we both practically had our jaws on the floor the whole time.

As I said in a post on the death thread, it is good that we are outraged when horses die, because it is a sign that it is not commonplace.  Same thing with drugs.  Sure, an occasional rider tries to flaunt our drug rule.  But we are the only discipline I know of that says NO DRUGS, PERIOD.  And we are outraged when people don't comply and injure their horses as a result.  The rest of the horse world looks at us with astonishment, because many of them honestly don't think they can compete without drugs.  Even with withdrawal times, etc., for those of you who have not been on the H/J circuit or the race track, you should see all the rigamarole about filling out paperwork on drugs, and calculating withdrawals, etc.  I was appalled working in HALTER barns at the drugs used to get horses sound enough to walk and jog (QH, APHA) in a HALTER ring!

So yes, let's keep a little bit of our indignation.  It pushes us in the right direction to help our horses stay healthy and fit with good horsemanship, good conditioning, good riding, good nutrition, and good management.  Let's just keep it in perspective and not go off the deep end about trying to legislate for every single incident that occurs.  Thank heavens for at least ONE equine sport where the emphasis is on the healthy horse.

Heidi