Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Mary Krauss wrote:
> I've been told several times, not particularly politely, that I'm an 
> idiot if I don't use an equine heart monitor.

Next time some jerk tells you that, dare him to walk up to the nearest Ride Vet 
and tell him/her *s/he's* an idiot.

Snappy comebacks aside, a plain monitor without a lot of bells and whistles only 
tells you how often a heart is beating.  It tells you nothing about the 
*quality* of the heartbeats.  A few years ago I was riding with some friends and 
one of them was "having problems" with her heart monitor.  The readings were all 
over the place.  We stopped and I got out my stethoscope to take a real listen. 
 Her horse's heartbeats were a frightening mix of sounds, some weak some loud, 
many almost "bubbly".

In my opinion the stethoscope is more reliable, more accurate and more 
informative than a monitor.  The only two reasons I would get a monitor are 1) 
if my hearing became too impaired to use the stethoscope and 2) if I wanted to 
be able to know what my horse's rate was coming into a vet check so I could slow 
down and arrive at the check at exactly the same moment I reached criteria.

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