[RC] Over Ridden? - k s swigartSteph said: Kat - I don't agree with your statement that any horse which is removed from competition has been over-ridden or 'ridden beyond its level of ability'. I did not say that any horse that is removed from competion, I said any horse that has been removed from competition because it is deemed by the vets to be no longer fit to continue. If you started out with a horse that was fit to continue and somewhere during the course of riding it you have a horse that is not fit to continue, then you HAVE ridden it beyond its level of fitness (that is what going from fit to continue to not fit to continue means). And I am willing to concede that there might be a handful of situations where it can be put down to nothing other than just bad luck; however none of the ones that she mentions: Regarding lameness .. (e.g. bruised foot, twisted ankle, blow from an object, thrown shoe, etc). If your horse bruised its foot during a ride it is because you rode it into a situation where it could bruise its foot, if you were more careful, it might not have. If your horse went lame from twisting its ankle it is because you rode it into a situation where it twisted its ankle and had not properly conditioned it for the possiblity. If you rode your horse into an object that hit it (assuming we aren't talking about a person leaping out of the bushes and taking a baseball bat to the horse's leg), then it was because you rode the horse into the object that hit it. If your horse went lame from a thrown shoe it is because the shoe wasn't applied properly in the first place, or you rode it through footing that pulled the shoe off, or because the horse is prone to throwing shoes (probably for comformational or hoof quality reasons) and isn't suited to a sport that requires it be kept shod. Likewise not every metabolic pull (e.g. dehydration, travel stress, sickness, anxiety, ulcer, extreme heat, extreme cold, azotoria, etc.) Horses that are dehydrated, overstressed by travel, sick, anxious, have ulcers, can't deal with the prevaling weather conditions, or tie up shouldn't have started at the world championships in the first place. Simply by entering the horse in the world championships you are stating, I have brought a fit horse to do this ride. It is possible that you have brought a horse that is incubating a disease that doesn't show until after the start of the ride, but I contend that this is a huge exception and rarely ever happens. There is a lot of risk associated with asking a horse to travel 100 miles in one day, whether it is fast or slow, and to punish or ban riders who do not complete the course is an arbitrary punishment. You didn't read what I said carefully enough. _I_ said that riders who present their horses to the vet asking for permission to continue on their horse and the vets determine that the horse is not fit to continue should have their COC for championship rides revoked. I.e. it is only those riders who don't know that the horse they have been riding for the past X number of miles is not fit to continue that have the COC revoked. But that it does not apply if you remove the horse from the competition yourself because you know the horse is not fit to continue. So, if the rider goes up to the officials and says, "I know my horse is lame, and not fit to go on, I withdraw from the competition" there is no loss of COC of the rider for this. However, riders who present their horses to the vet and say, "I believe my horse to be fit to continue" and it turns out that they are wrong...well, they need to be told to go home and learn a bit more about how to properly evaluate the condition of a horse before they come back to the world championships. I don't consider it unreasonable to require championship level riders to be able to properly evaluate the fitness of their horses to continue, and the biggest reason for having this penalty is so riders don't try to sneak unfit horses past the vets. I am NOT suggesting that these requirements be imposed on all riders at all rides, just on those who are claiming to be skilled enough to compete at the world championship level. Let me give you an example of a situation where I over rode my horse to lameness on a 100 mile ride: A number of years ago (don't ask me how many) I took my horse to the Swanton Pacific. A few miles after the first vet check we had to ride along a paved two lane highway. I was on a horse that (at the time) wasn't really good with traffic. While we were riding along this road, a car went by, spooked my horse and she bolted down the road, then another car came by in the opposite direction, spooked her again, she spun around, slipped and fell on the pavement and scraped a huge hunk of skin off of her fetlock. She was moving fine immediately afterward and the wound was fairly superficial; however, when this wound got dirt in it (a number of miles down the trail when we went into some soft dirt getting around a gate post), it hurt her alot and she became quite lame. I walked the next few miles into the next vet check and pulled/was pulled for lameness (actually the vets put down RO, but when Barb McCrary called me later to ask my why I pulled I told her it was because my horse was lame). Did I over ride my horse? You bet. If I had properly prepared my horse for the conditions of the ride (a section along a paved road with traffic on it), she wouldn't have spooked in the first place (or I wouldn't have brought a horse that spooks at traffic)...and none of the rest of it would have happened. It was NOT bad luck that caused my horse to spin around and slip on the pavement, it was lack of proper preparation for the conditions at hand (I know this, because I was riding with Becky Glaser at the time and her horse saw the same cars and didn't injure itself, so obviously Becky was on a better prepared and conditioned horse than I was). Lame horses aren't caused by bad luck. They are caused by bad riding. I.e. you did not ride the horse in such a way that was suitable to the conditions and the level of fitness/schooling of the horse. Does this mean that endurance horses need to be well conditioned and well schooled? Of course. Is it unreasonable for the FEI to expect that the best riders in the world on the best horses in the world are on horses that are well conditioned and well schooled before showing up for the world championship, and for countries to only field teams of horses with riders that are well conditioned and well schooled? I don't think so. And it certainly isn't unreasonble for the FEI to expect the best riders in the world to KNOW when their horses are not fit to continue and to not even ask for permission to do so. Those that don't know are the ones who should have their COC revoked. kat Orange County, Calif. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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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