I have a ? that might seem silly. I rode in the Rhode Island ride a few weeks ago. We had some of the worst possible weather for a ride. It was about 95 degrees with a 75 degree dewpoint-which is beyond oppressive. I ride a heavy-muscled Icelandic pony. I was riding the 50 mile and at the second vet hold at mile 35, my horse was not cooling down quick enough for his heart rate to come down in 30 minutes.
Please realize he was not in distress. He was just hot and it was too humid for him to cool. We dumped over 75 gallons of water on him. When you see the numbers for this ride you will know I was not alone. I had plenty of horse and time to finish the ride, it was not our day.
My 2 questions are:
1. Should I have RO'd or vetted my horse (which is what I did) and gotten a pull for metabolics?
I also tried looking in the rules and could not find this info:
2. Do I have to wait a certain amount of time to compete if I was pulled for metabolics. I think I had heard something about this on ridecamp.
PS: The ride results have not been posted yet so you won't find them if you go looking for the numbers.
Susan Cushing and Lappi-who was glad to finish early that day.
