Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

> > The horse never left camp!  It coliced before it was ever saddled up.
> Did it leave home???  From the horse's point of view, that's when the
event
> starts.  Not out of camp.
>
> Susan Garlinghouse DVM
Susan, I agree wholeheartedly about the stress of travel.  But that said, to
blame the travel stress on endurance per se is a stretch.  Travel stress
occurs with--well--travel.  It is not unique to endurance, and while we are
right to study it and appreciate it and realize it has an additive effect to
what we do on the trail, the point that many of us are trying to make is
that travel stress is something that horses encounter in virtually anything
else that they do, except for standing around home getting fat and smelling
the daisies.

So yes, in a physiological sense, the stress starts when you leave home.
Heck, it starts before that, if you haven't done your homework properly.
But to specifically "blame" the sport because the horse colicks due to
travel stress is not really logical.  You could just as well have hauled him
to the beach, or to a rodeo, or moved to the next state with him.  That's
not "endurance-related."  And that's all that some of us are trying to say.

Heidi


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