Hi to all at ride camp.
My name is Greg and I live in
Tasmania(Island State of Australia) I have
been Endurance Riding for about 12
years now and am preparing me Pure Arab
Stallion for the 2002 Tom Quilty
(Similar to your Tevis
Cup)."Matey"(Bellawongarah Ibn Riaal) is a seasoned
horse and has over 3000
successful Kilometres including one Tom Quilty
completion in 1999.
I have been reading with interest the posts on Vet
cards and how much
training.
Could someone enlighten me on the vetting
procedure that is used in the
States.
In Australia each horse has a
Log Book. There are two stages. A blue book is
for a novice horse and the
yellow book is for horses that have satisfied the
criteria for an endurance
horse. These books are waterproof paper and can't
be tampered with.Vetting
parameters are very strict.
A normal vetting flows something like this.
Horse arrives back at base has
1/2 hour to recover below 55bpm(after first
leg subsequent legs 60bpm)
Report to TPR steward Temperature Pulse and
Respiration taken .if above
above parameters horse is vetted out. If Ok then
on to the vet who does a
thorough check of pulse gut sounds, cap refill,skin
recoil, mucus membranes,
alertness, feet & legs back, muscle tone anal
tone and then the trot out.
This procedure is used for 80Km rides For
160Km rides the CRI method is
usually used.
Anyone who is interested
in our rule book check out
www.aera.asn.au
the
website of Australia's governing endurance body.
On training an
old endurance rider told me it takes an hour a day for a
thousand days to
have an endurance horse that will run at the front of the
field. I have found
this not to be too wrong. Now that Matey is well
conditioned we usually train
three or four times a week alternating between
9 Km and 20Km tracks. I am
very lucky as I ride out my gate virtually into
Forestry land where I can
ride for hours. Once per month I try to do my
training on the beach. This is
about an hour from home. My usual training
pace is about 9-10Km per
hour.
Cheers Greg
TEERA#70084
