Re: RC: Pulse Taking at PAC

[Truman Prevatt <tprevatt@mindspring.com>]

This method or something very similar was used at Ft. Howes this year.  It
seemed to work without much a hitch. We've used the hand helds at a few SE
rides.  Riders will have to take off their HRM's transmitters - either by
untacking or the belts since two transmitters could cause some interference
similar to the analogue quartz crystal watches.

Truman

"Linda B. Merims" wrote:

> The big news with pulse taking at PAC is that the veterinarians,
> stewards, and ground jury agreed to have pulses taken with heart
> rate monitors.  All of the pulse volunteers (and one pulse recorder
> who decided to tag along :-) got together at 9 a.m. on Friday morning
> for a briefing.  Our briefer was...Roger Rittenhouse.  He showed up
> with a kit bag full of the metal handled VMAX hand-held transmitters,
> a bunch of monitor/watches, and oodles of tubes of electrode gel.
> (See http://www.vmaxept.com/ if, by chance, you've never seen this
> stuff.)
>
> I don't know why the vets decided to do this.  Roger didn't say. (Roger?)
> My *guess* would be that it was extremely important to have fully
> normalized, level-playing-field results at this competition,
> and there was no guarantee that a bunch of volunteers could be
> counted on to *all* take pulses right enough and similar enough and
> accurate enough to match what a HRM could do.
>
> Roger did say, however, that there had been alot of debate
> among the vets as to the exact technique that should be used
> with the monitors.  They had come to an agreement and this is
> what Roger proceeded to tell us:
>
>  - put it on the horse
>  - wait until the 0 turns into a number
>  - at the next memorable "counting" point, start watching the
>    second counter
>  - watch it for 30 seconds
>  - if you lose the signal, start again
>  - but if you get to 30 seconds, take the reading THEN at the 30
>    second mark
>  - if the horse is 60 or less write it down and pass them through
>  - if the horse exceeds 60, keep going for another 30 seconds
>  - take the reading at 60 seconds
>  - if they pass now, let them through
>  - if they fail, they have the option to immediately ask for
>    a vet assigned to that task to take a reading using his
>    stethescope.
>
> We were supposed to keep the monitor face visible to the rider, if
> they wanted to see.  He also told us not to wear any analog watches,
> because they can override the transmitter and pulse the receiver
> at 60 beats per minute!
>
> We all got our own transmitters, tubes of goo, and monitors and
> tramped out to the field by the big white Upwey barn.  Vetting In
> was at 10 a.m. Friday and they had decided to have all the pulse
> takers practise on the horses before they went forward to
> the vets.  This would serve multiple purposes:  teach the
> pulse takers how to use the equipment, identify any problems
> with the equipment, and identify any horses that were a "difficult
> read."  If you look at the pictures on
> http://www.vthorse.com/pac/pacpictures2.html, that's what's going
> on:  the horses lined up next to the stone wall are all getting
> their pulses taken by the volunteer pulse takers before
> going on to the vets immediately in front of the Upwey barn.
> I'm actually in one of these pictures.  Second row, right.
> See the gray horse?  Now see the bay horse behind him?  See
> the silver thing on the bay horse's girth area?  See the
> hand holding it?  Well, the hand is me :-).  (The grey horse is
> Steve Rojek's Smoke Rise Finally who finished 5th and the bay
> horse is Dinah Rojek's Phoenix, who was one of the 4 USA EAST
> official team members, but who got pulled very late in the
> course.)
>
> Things went very smoothly.  The horses were all extremely well
> behaved.  A few horses were a bit difficult because of their
> "concave" girth build, but in the end we heard that only one
> horse couldn't be read with the monitors.
>
> I got one thrill.  During a lull in the action, one of the
> officials, an older fellow in a green shirt came up and asked
> in a very quiet voice to see the transmitter and monitor.  I
> was showing it to him and going through my little routine
> describing the procedure and the 2 second samples and the
> 6 buffers and the 12 second averaging when I glanced at his
> name tag.  It was Kerry Ridgeway.
>
> After the vet in finished, I wandered back over to the main
> Youth Center building where the offices, vendors, and freebie
> food was.  Ground Jury President Jerry Gillespie was having an
> earnest head-to-head with Donna Smith Curtain on the veranda.
> As I walked by I (as is my wont--I am a hopeless snoop) sampled
> the conversation and I realized that he was talking to her
> about the procedure for taking pulses.  Moreover, what
> he was telling her was *different* from what all the
> pulse taker volunteers had been told and had just spent
> 45 minutes practising!  I spoke up, but it turns out that
> they were already aware of the discrepancy.
>
> An announcement went out over the PA--"All pulse taker
> volunteers please report to the Youth Center for a meeting."
>
> When we had all assembled, Gillespie explained the change
> in procedure that all the vets, including lead vet Jeanne
> Waldron, had finally agreed to.  The change was small:
> instead of taking the reading at 30 seconds, we were to
> take it at 15 seconds.  And, if the horse exceeded 60,
> we were to go 15 more & check, if >60, 15 more & check,
> if >60, 15 more & check.
>
> Again, I don't know why this change was made.  Roger, can
> you fill us in?  It did address one of the problems I had
> had during the practise session.  Phoenix had a tendancy
> to shift a bit and my monitor kept zeroing and I had to
> keep starting over.  At one point I got all the way up
> to 25 seconds when he took just enough pressure off it
> to make it zero.  Reading for just 15 seconds instead of
> 30 would make this much easier.
>
> As for the event itself, I functioned as a pulse recorder
> at Vet Check 2 (22.5 miles) at GMHA itself (my pictures
> come back from Kodak today), and again at Vet Check 5
> (60 miles) at the same location.  There were 9 "lanes"
> manned by pulse takers, and thus the ability to process
> up to 9 horses simultaneously.  Even at VC2 when the
> horses were still pretty bunched, I don't think we ever
> filled up all 9 lanes at the same time.
>
> As near as I could tell (being only an injun), things
> functioned exremely smoothly.  All the handlers were
> extremely courteous and let us do our job without hassling
> us.  If there were any complaints about using the HRMs,
> I didn't hear about them.  Roger?  Almost all of these people
> use HRMs themselves to monitor their horses while they
> pulse down and using the equipment seemed to sort-of
> "trump" any inclination to doubt the results.
>
> I was also amazed at how well all of the horses behaved.  I
> keep hearing all these stories about these nutty endurance
> horses, but these horses were all complete professionals.
> I also got a kick out of the "Shhh! Don't wake the baby!"
> atmosphere in the pulse taking area.  The way the handlers
> led the horses in was like a mother delicately helping her
> toddler take its first steps.
>
> I hope that Roger, as much more of an insider to these
> proceedings, can enlighten us on the reasons and the technical
> issues surrounding the debate and decisions.
>
> Now the question I want answered is, what is Roger going to
> do with two dozen half-used tubes of electrode gel?
>
> Linda B. Merims
> lbm@naisp.net
> Massachusetts, USA
>
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