RE: fit to finish??

[Darolyn Butler-Dial <darolyn@swbell.net>]

Ok Guys, there are saddle sores & there are saddle sores....

the historic saddle sore of which you speak was indeed an ugly issue, and a large & ugly sore.  This rider was first of all, a high official in the AERC, he was traveling with a letter from his vet stating that this was a "healing wound".... in order to add more clout to this inhumane issue.

 

He would use his office to brow beat & intimidate ride vets in other parts of the world to allow him to enter with this outrageous "healing wound" and on one occasion, (not hearsay, I talked with the attending vet in first person), he came in & vetted in after dark with a blanket in place, then of course during the ride the saddle covered the wound, then on his final check, he again presented with a blanket.   Once again, this is why the saddle removal during vet checks became almost mandatory for a while... has relaxed a bit since then, but everyone became quite obsessive about it for awhile. 

 

As far as a small rub, I'm not sure I know a rider that hasn't cause a rub somewhere on a horse at sometime or the other.  Many times I arrive at a ride with a slight rub, or worse visually, an ugly horse bite somewhere in the saddle area.  I have found if you use generous amounts of Vaseline and/or desitin, in most cases the wound my pink slightly, but will get no worse.  Most vets are reasonable in this aspect, as it is not career threatening or horribly painful, And will heal up  in a short amount of time.  Therefore , you don't often see a rider not allowed to start or to pull their completion due to a slight rub.

JMO

DJBD  #25, 20,000 Miles

Darolyn Butler-Dial  & Mark Dial  (COWBOY)

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 -----Original Message-----
From: Kathy Mayeda [mailto:Kathy_Mayeda@atce.com]
Sent: Friday, August 03, 2001 4:04 PM
To: Truman Prevatt
Cc: ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: RC: RE: RE: fit to finish??

Thanks, Truman, for giving us that piece of history.  Okay - so now there's "FIT TO START", "fit to finish" and "fit to continue".

 

I'm sure that I would not have started a ride the next day with that saddle sore.  Which makes it all the more awesome thatthe multi-day people can ride their horses and keep them from falling apart over the long run.

K.