Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Thanks, Steph, for posting this.  It gives a tremendous insight into  
the 'behind the scenes' stuff.  It also gives a lot of facts that will  
hopefully calm some of the postings here.  :)


> It is Wendy M (don’t know how to spell her last name) whom had the  
> vaccination problem, but the organizing committee is transporting  
> her horse specially in another week so that the she can still  
> compete…so generous of them!!

BTW - I thought this was great.  The organizing committee seems to  
have put out every effort to get as many folks there for the  
competition as they could.


> Updates from Jim about our horses are that they are fine. Flame and  
> Theatric were leg wrapped for the trip, and Theatric had a lot of  
> secondary leg filling, but he removed the wraps and all will be fine.
"Secondary filling" -- what's that?  I took this to mean that the  
wraps actually caused the filling.  Is that right?

> Sooo, Becky asked us to pick up speed again for the 5th loop. The  
> goal was 13 mph. I told her we had cantered most of the last 2 loops  
> at that speed, but cooling slowed our overall pace. She suggested we  
> ride at a slower pace if it meant we could stop at fewer water  
> spots, but to try to maintain as close to 13mph as possible.

Just one example.  There was an overall plan, and a strategy, for  
pacing, with the goal as a top 10 finish.  I can't remember the ride  
times, but I'm guessing that the times would have been sufficient for  
a top 10 team finish.  As for individual ... I think the Spanish rider  
and the UAE team surprised everyone with the pace they made.

> Over the next few hours she developed filling in the LF ankle, and  
> it was the LF which Leon had collided into when we had the thunder  
> bolt accident, so we assume she had an injury then, and the miles  
> gradually took their toll. Jan went out on her own the last 2 loops  
> and was the first US horse to finish, but Leon was pulled at the  
> finish. He was lame in the RF…once again the leg involved in his  
> accident with Rev.
And then ... you just get bad luck.  As I said before, I can't imagine  
continuing after that kind of a wreck.  You ladies are awesome.  (And  
Meg's description was worse than the initial report -- "hit a  
tree!!!!?"  "under the horse"!!?  Nope .. call the vet, call the doc,  
I'm all done.)

> So, Kathy and Val ended up being our only finishers….sort of ironic  
> considering we were worried whether these 2 horses would get through  
> the first vet check. The final verdict was only 3 countries finished  
> a team (we think…).
A race with a 30% completion rate is tough by any standard.  To  
complete a team -- everything has to go right.  Lightning strikes are  
not in that category.

> I think our result is incredibly depressing in that it will once  
> again get drug though ridecamp as a failure for the team, although I  
> really believe the system worked. This is the 3rd world  
> championships I have participated in, and I think the process has  
> improved significantly beyond my past experiences. I think we had  
> horses capable of doing very well here and we were on our way to  
> doing it. None of our horses had metabolic problems, and Becky, Jim  
> and Todd were simply wonderful. I feel terrible for letting them  
> down, but we need to focus on moving forward and continuing to  
> improve the system. That’s it for here…
Yeah - there have been folks on Ridecamp who hollered "failure".  Some  
folks get upset when the US Olympic team "only" gets silver.  Yeesh.

I think team did very, very well, and was prevented from achieving its  
goals by mostly sheer bad luck.  It also sounds as if the system  
worked pretty well, and the team management has learned from things  
that went wrong previous times.  Sounds like a lot of potential  
problems were averted or overcome prior to even being able to start  
the race.  A wonderful effort by all.  Congratulations.




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