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Re: [RC] Old Dominion Ride Meeting - rides2far@xxxxxxxxA>re you telling me that if you present a second time and your horse still isn't down to pulse criteria, you are PULLED? Considering all the things that can spike a pulse, I don't know when I've heard of a more asinine policy. What do they possibly hope to accomplish that a >>>>>>>>time penalty wouldn't do as well? Joe Long To me it automatically adds a time penalty if you're on a thicker bodied horse since you can't just get your horse to 64 and walk in, you make sure he's down to 56 or so, which takes longer...and over the course of the day 5 minutes here and there add up on a ride like this. Doing it at one ride under one vet you figure somebody just had a bad idea one day...but the fact that they announced it at Biltmore and OD worries me. Just because FEI heads in a certain direction on how they deal with competitors does not mean it's good for the sport in general. This is not the same animal as what is having to deal with the desert racers competing for pride of their family or whatever. If they want to test run different things to try on that bunch I don't think we're a very good test groups and this course is certainly nothing like those guys deal with. At one point in the ride 38 miles? we had a stop and go. No crews allowed. We had just done a tremendous ridge that we'd tailed up, it was 12:30 (noon heat) in a wide open field with absolutely no shade. When we came in the water trough had about 3" of water in one end and 1" in the other (slope). The water was in the sun, so it was good & bathwater warm. We had to get three horses pulses down with them standing in that heat and there was no more water on the way. Volunteers were very kind, someone brought us a bucket of water from their trailer and they all grabbed a sponge and helped out, but the horses still only had 2 chances to stay below 64 long enough to take it and you had to hurry up and ask for pulse when they hit 64 because the second you stopped sponging and scraping in that sun they were going to climb back up. The threat of that two time rule was just unnecessary to add to a situation where there are plenty of unavoidable variables you've got to deal with already. I hope they just decide it's not worth the added trouble for any imagined benefit and go on to other things. Angie Angie =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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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