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RE: [RC] [AERC-Members] HRM at Vet Check Poll - David LeBlancJoe Long said: These are some of the questions that have caused me to withold judgement on Matthew's idea. I don't like the bit about 2 pulse lines - vet checks are already crazy enough, sometimes held in non-ideal spots, etc. I also think it's at least partly based on a false premise, that it is the folks running for Top Ten who get their horses into metabolic trouble. I have not seen any evidence that the Top Ten riders have any higher incidence of metabolic problems than the rest of the field, and in fact I suspect it is the other way 'round. More than one of the vets I was listening to at PanAm said that you'd see most of your pulls in the front of the pack and the back of the pack. The reasons are obvious when you think about it - the front because people are going too fast (with respect to what their horse can do), and the back because someone _was_ going too fast, knows they're in trouble and slows down. One thing to ask when looking at whether top 10 riders have more metabolic pulls is top 10 WHEN? Were they top 10 at the finish? Were they top 10 the first 10 miles and couldn't handle the pace? Nothing wrong with running top 10 if you're fit for it, but I've certainly seen people get themselves in trouble running top 10 when they're not fit for it. They generally don't finish top 10, if at all. If we try something like this, I think we should do so the way other improvements have been tried (such as the CRI): at a few selected rides to see how it actually works in practice, before even thinking about mandating it for all AERC rides. Pilot studies are generally a good thing... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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