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From: <heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > > LOL!  Yeah, that's a legitimate "RO"--er, "W"--in my book...  <g>
....
> Puhleeze, kat, look at the LOL and the <g>...
So...if you meant your above reponse as a joke, then you didn't answer
my original question.

Which of the current AERC pull codes should be put down when a rider
withdraws from the competition because the horse isn't having fun?

This time, tell us what you really think, instead of just making a joke.
I didn't mean the question as a joke, it is a perfect example of the
many times that I have withdrawn my horse from a ride, and it is why
there are so many RO pulls in the AERC stats (which is how this whole
discussion got started).

I will agree that very few of the RO pulls listed in the stats are
truely because there is something sufficiently wrong with the rider such
that the rider is unwilling/unable to go on.  And I doubt that most of
them are put there by vets who don't want the public records of their
friends horses to look bad, but rather it is a "catch all" for "the
rider decided not to go on because of some indescribable something that
they thought might be wrong with the horse."  And since the horse did
NOT go on, nobody ever had a chance to find out if/whether there really
was something wrong, or what it was, since most of the time the horse is
back to its normal self within a few hours (which is what happened in
the instance with my horse that wasn't having fun, a few hours later she
was doing arabesques tied to the trailer desperate to go some more).
And even if you do find out later (because whatever was wrong progressed
and has now become obvious), that still isn't why the rider pulled the
horse.

Additionally, there is no "RO-OT"  and I have on many occasions seen
people pull their horses from the competition, not because they were
over time at that particular vet check (if a vet check doesn't have any
official cut off times, then the only place a horse can be pulled by the
officials for being over time is at the finish), but because they were
far enough behind schedule that they knew they couldn't ride responsibly
and still finish under time, so they withdrew before the finish.

It is time for the AERC to go back to what I suspect was the original
way that pull codes were handled, before they started publishing them.
If a horse is pulled by the officials, then the reason is M (metabolic),
L (lame), OT (over time), DQ (disqualified for breaking some other
rule).  If a horse is cleared by the officials to go on and the rider
OPTS not to go on, for whatever reason, then the reason given is RO
(rider option); however, since having "rider option" as one of the codes
leaves the impression that riders who were pulled by the officials would
have opted to go on had they not been disqualified, I suggest that RO be
changed to W (withdrawn).

kat
Orange County, Calif.





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