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Re: [RC] Distance between vetchecks - k s swigartFrom: "Jim Holland" <lanconn@xxxxxxx> This is not very practical for most rides, at least in the SE, unless you know the trail, have pre-rode the trail, and planned where you are going to "rest" your horse. There is usually a continual parade of horses flying by since we typically have repeat loops with 25 milers and 50 milers on the same trail. My initial response to this statement was, "Well....that isn't a very well laid out trail." And thought to myself, that rather than providing a mandatory rest stop early in the effort, ride management would have done better to lay out the trail in such a way that people who don't want to go the same speeds aren't running over each other. But then I realized that I suppose it is possible that the limitations of the logistics of the available trail, vet check locations, and available staff are such that there really is no other way to do it. That the choices are: have a ride where people are running over each other, or don't have a ride at all. Which is not all that much different from the choice that was faced on day 1 of the old Outlaw Trail: don't have a vet check until 45 miles into the ride, or don't have the ride at all. So I will make a deal (because Jim said): I would support a mandatory vet check within the first 15 miles, even if it was a 20 minute rest...then a fly-by. Even if the vet check had to be held at 5 miles, that would be preferable to no check for 15 miles. I agree not to support a rule saying that ride managers aren't allowed to lay out a course that has people going faster coming up behind people going slower, if you don't support a rule that mandates a vet check within the first 15 miles. I for one, would not even consider this, particularly on the first loop, particularly on an inexperience horse. On an experienced horse with many miles, maybe. Although I must confess, I find myself somewhat disturbed by the sentiment expressed above (and in a bunch of other places including Stagg Newman's account of PAC this year, so it ain't just a "newbie" thing, and "inexperience horse" thing, or a "SE region" thing). There seems to be something of a collective mentality saying that we need to do something to accommodate the fact that, of course, everybody is going to gallop their horse to the first vet check (no matter how far it is) because nobody (even Mr. "one rein stop perfectly trained horses" Holland :)) has any control over the pace their horse goes before there is a mandatory hold where the vets and the pulse criteria can sort things out. This is NUTS! :) If we are to have any success in stopping people from over riding their horses at endurance rides, we don't need figure out something to accommodate this mentality. We have to CHANGE!!!!!!!!!!! this mentality. And if we can't do that, we are doomed. The only way I would "rest" in this situation is to get off and walk..but you better be sure you do it on a road where people can pass...or you just might get run over in the woods on single track. How would YOU do this? Just curious..... <grin> I have done this in a lot of different ways: The first and foremost, of course, is to try to avoid bringing a horse to a ride before I, at least, have some assurity that it is sufficiently well trained to pay attention to me anyway, and if I know it is a ride where I am constantly going to have faster horses running up behind me, I would find some other venue for that horse's first ride (which is, I contend, why I like to start horses at multi-day rides...point to point multi-day rides are the best:)). However, other strategies that I have used on novice (or over eager) horses include: When I find a wide enough spot in the trail, I get off and stop, and feed the horse some of the ~5 lbs of grain that I bring along with me on virtually every ride (having, of course, already taught the horse at home to "go for the food, it's a sure thing."). Don't even start the ride until 1/2 hr to an hour after the front runners. Bring along (or, barring that, find) another horse that is already sufficiently well trained to be ratable that is going to go along at about the same place that I think I might like to go and have somebody else ride that horse and rate it, and then my horse can stay with that horse instead of thinking that it should stay with any horse that happens to come by. If the horse just won't allow itself to me rated under saddle, I get off and walk. And no, the DOESN'T have to be done only on roads. If I get off and walk my horse, I can walk just as fast as the horse can, so walking my horse in hand is no "slower" than walking it under saddle, and it is a total fallacy that you are only allowed to slow your horse down (even to a walk) on trail that is wide enough to allow anybody who is galloping up behind you to be able to get around you without having to slow down. If somebody comes up behind me while I am walking my horse in hand on a single track trail, they can do the same thing that they would do if they were to come up behind anybody who is going slower than they want to go. They can let me know that they are back there and would like to pass, and I will get off the trail at the first opportunity. In fact, I will do the same thing I would do were anybody to come up behind me, no matter how fast I was going, which is to ask them if they would like to pass...frequently, because they had no control over the pace that their horse was going, they say "No" because they are only too pleased to let me rate their horse along with my own :). [Re the Outlaw Trail] Known trail, everybody is stopped. IMHO, irrelevant. It basically IS a Vet Check with everything but the Vet. Rest, water, and calm down. This is a unique situation, not typical of most rides. Well..."respectfully disagree." For several reasons. The first time I did the Outlaw Trail, it was not a "known trail" to me. Because I had attended the pre-ride meeting, I knew that it was 45 miles to the first vet check, and I knew, at least on the map and trail guide, where the "bail out points" were (places where you could, if you felt that your horse wasn't going to make it all the way to the vet check that you could head down to the highway and flag down a passing tourist), and I knew, at least on the map and trail guide, where the "point of no return" was (the place on the trail where, after you passed it, the next opportunity for help was the vet check). And I had sort of "hooked up" with somebody else who had already done the ride (ironically because we had met at the same rest area along the highway on the way to the ride where we had both stopped for lunch) that I had already quizzed about their intended ride strategy and had arranged to kind of tag along on the trail with her because it sounded like she was planning to pace her horse about the same way I would like to pace mine. But that didn't keep me from stopping my horse in a meadow about 10 miles into the ride and getting off and letting my horse graze and eat some of the grain I had brought along with me and telling her, "You know, my horse needs to stop here, you go on ahead. Maybe I will catch up with you, maybe I won't." And despite the fact that I was riding a stallion, and she was riding a mare, and that my horse would have LIKED to go along with that mare, well...we didn't; we stopped and had a graze and a snack. I did catch up with them a little bit later, and we did stop at Pear Lake and Meeks Lake together (for as long as each of us thought was the appropriate amount of time to let our horses rest, and refuel...not for some amount of time mandated by ride management) and probably a few other places as well also not mandated by ride management. And I did, actually, leave them behind during the last ten miles after the vet check ....what do you do when you are riding at home and there is no vet or ride manager there to tell you where you need to rest? ? ? ? ? ? :)IMHO, big difference between riding at home and participating in an Endurance Ride for reasons obvious to the most casual observer! :) If the difference is so obvious to the most casual observer, it shouldn't be all that difficult for you to explain these big differences to me. Because, quite frankly, personally, I approach every endurance ride that I go to as being virtually no different from any other ride that I do, not at an endurance ride. For me, the only difference is that somebody else has laid out the trail (and even some of the non-endurance trail rides I go to, that can be said about). I still remember the pre-ride meeting from my first multi-day ride (Death Valley) when the first comment from the head vet (the Duck) was: "I am assuming that all of you have ridden your horses NOT at an endurance ride." (that is an exact quote, from here on I paraphrase) "That all of you have taken your horses out on the trail prior to this event during your conditioning, and that for most of that riding, it was not under a veterinarian's control...so, obviously, you all already know how to take care of your own horses. Since you obviously all know how to take care of your horses, there is absolutely no reason that you shouldn't just do it, without being told to do so by me." So no, I don't find the differences obvious at all. kat Orange County, Calif. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. 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