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RE: [RC] Changing Vet/Pulse Criteria - David LeBlancroleyed@xxxxxxxxxxxxx said: I'm a heavyweight riding a grade horse which is a "heavy"(turbo charged Morgan/Arab cross with heavy duty towing package per Angie) 15H 1000lb horse. Generally, I ride to complete with a goal of going as fast as we can can go in a quest to do a little better than last time. Sometimes I even do get close to Top 10(talking 50's) and often am the first HW. We would generally meet this new criteria for the vet checks but having "raced" at the end of one 50 in warmer weather than my horse was used to(early April in Georgia coming from mtns of NC) ended up not meeting pulse criteria until 20-25 minutes at end of ride. I'm also a heavyweight - I generally weigh in with tack at 225-230, and I've been 1st HW twice this year. Weight makes a difference - I watched my horse CRI at a 44/40 after carrying a 60 lb junior. I didn't know he could do that <g>. I sometimes ride our smaller, rounder part Appy mare - she's maybe 14h2", and rode her mother before that (even rounder and a little shorter). Only time I ever had difficulty meeting criteria in 10 minutes, I pulled. My wife also rides as HW, though she's barely in HW - only time she's had trouble meeting pulse in 10 minutes she raced in. In retrospect, she says she should have pulled back, taken an extra 3 minutes to get in, and she'd probably have BC'd. Think about this - she'd run 50 miles at a fast pace, came in 4th, galloped the last mile or so, and still pulsed down at 12 minutes. Sure, this is going to disproportionately affect us - we're heavier and our horses have to work harder. Excepting for weight division points, the whole sport is oriented towards small, light people. If I couldn't meet criteria for 15 minutes, I'd pull - unless I was completing - in which case, I'd be really worried about my horse. IMHO, if it took 20-25 minutes, you went too fast that day. The horse might have been fine that time, but you might have dodged a bullet. OK, so racing can be fun. I had a lot of fun my last loop at Redwoods. I was 1st HW, 8th overall, and we did the last 11 miles in less than an hour. My horse pulsed down in < 5 minutes. <just joking> It'll make it even more fun gambling to see if you get 1st HW or a completion. 8-) <vbg> </joking>. I was going to send this comment to another post, but I'll tack it on here - I worked as a vet scribe at PanAm. There seemed to me to be a solid correlation between time to pulse down and whether the horse was fit to continue. There's still some scatter - some people took extra time so the horse could eat - they had some good reason, and the horse was fine. Some horses that took 10+ minutes to come down rested up and did OK. But on the whole, the horses that came down quicker were in better shape. That's my observation from one very long day looking at a lot of horses, but I'd be willing to bet the vets here would agree. I think it is a good idea, but I'd add to it - if your horse won't come down for 15+ minutes, then the hold ought to be extended for a period to be determined by the vet, and a mandatory exit check should be done. If it's a completion, you ought to have to come back a while later and let the vet take another look. It might save some horses. One more thing - no, this won't save ALL the horses. There's still going to be some that get in trouble. I think it might save SOME horses, and that's good. I agree that people ought to ride responsibly, but people make mistakes and don't always understand how big a mistake it is while they're making it. And then I think some people out there just don't care as much about their animal as I think they ought to, and having a mechanism to slow them down would help. My $0.02... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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