Re: [RC] [Guest] Adios/Metabolic failures@ PAC - Heidi Smith
>Call me idiotic, ignorant, naive, newbie...whatever you like, but any
sport that requires an IV at the end to "feel better" seems a bit extreme to
me.
>Maybe I need to stick to trail riding?
>is there any other sport that does this?? Am I just being super
sheltered?
In my experience, endurance is the one sport where people tend to both CARE
enough to intervene and also have the KNOWLEDGE to do so. I was always
appalled when my show clients would come home from shows and tell me how many
horses had colicked and died at a given show, or had tied up miserably and had
maybe gotten at best a shot of Banamine. In most horse sports, the people
dump their horses in stalls in strange places overnight and go off to
motels. If the horse gets in trouble, they just find it there in the
morning. Most horse sports do NOT have vets in attendance (or if they do,
it is for minor things, not for any major sort of problem)--so when wrecks
happen, the horses are conveniently hauled off to clinics out of sight of
the venue. How tidy. One of the worst tie-ups I ever had to attend
was at a pleasure trail ride of some local riding club--horse was REALLY in
trouble, and no one there with any expertise to deal with it. As luck
would have it, I was vetting a competitive trail driving event a few miles down
the road from their camp and one of the riders got the bright idea that
there might be a vet at such an event, and came and got me.
Yes, you are being super-sheltered. In other sports, the horses just
die, and people seem to just take it as a part of it all. Maybe it is
BECAUSE you care that you're hanging out with endurance riders--folks who DO
think that death is something worth preventing if at all possible (even if that
means hanging jugs), and investigating if it hasn't been prevented.
I've been lucky--I'm bearing down on 6000 miles, and so far, no jugs.
(Well, I also believe that one DOES create one's own luck, up to a certain
point--but there are still those oddball things that NO one can plan for or see
coming.) But I WAS a bit surprised last weekend when I thought I had
gotten "into" my horse a bit more than I care to, and he was a tad slow coming
down at the finish--and the newbie ride vet kept asking me if I wanted someone
else to hold him while I went to get something to eat, etc., etc. Geez,
being an endurance rider, I can't even begin to fathom giving up my friend
and partner to a stranger at a time when he has been stressed at MY bidding
and needs me to stick by him, just to go make MYSELF comfy! It'd be
different if he had a crew there of "his" people there who also know
and love him, but I didn't have that luxury. I was who he had, and I
owed it to him to stick by him and make sure all was well with
him. My supper can come when he is adequately recovered, back at his
rig eating, and all is well with him. And most endurance riders
are like that. And because endurance riders tend to care as much
about their horses as I do about mine, that's one reason I love and stay with
this sport. And like Joe, if I do mess up and get over the line to the
point that it would be in my horse's benefit to have a jug hung, I hope I don't
let my own pride get in my way with regard to how it "looks."
I don't agree that it is a practice which should be done routinely "just
because the horse could use it to recover." IVing has attendant risks as
well, and as long as all his metabolic faculties are sufficiently intact that he
can eat and drink his way to recovery without them, that's how it ought to
be. But if there is a question as to whether that is the case, and he
would be "better safe than sorry"--well, then, the smart thing to do is play it
safe, as Joe did in his one case. But Joe is right--one can't assume that
just because the horse is on a jug, he is close to death's door. He may
well just have an owner that erred mildly and would rather leave his ego at the
door and take care of his buddy.
