Didn't Special have the muscle fatigue and shakes after quite a bit
of riding? This isn't tieing up.
> It just TERRIFIES me that she
> could have died, and that it would have been -MY- fault! I've always
> known that getting into endurance riding was potentially very hard on a
> horse. But I guess I just didn't think that it could be so serious at my
> currently -low- level.
>
You work through it. My very first endurance ride was horrible.
I thought I'd killed my horse. My friend (who is a lurker here)
was horrified that she'd been instrumental in getting me into
endurance riding. And we just didn't know what had happened.
On a 25 mile ride. In fair conditions. Not too tough a trail.
Not too much hard riding. I came into the very first vet check (9
miles) with a fairly high heart rate. Not too high, but above citeria.
I let my horse eat and drink. She grazed. She looked happy,
but the heart rate wouldn't come down, at all. Finally the
head vet came over, as a curtisy (ie, she saw I'd been there way
too long), and checked the heart. Pharalina was in A-Fib! Her
pulse and her heart rate were not the same. (Her heart would
beat, but not enough to push the blood, I didn't quiet understand
this part.) I knew I'd killed my horse. I was horrified. I would
never do this again (etc.)
By the time I got to CSU vet hospital, Pharalina was fine.
The vet learned a bit about endurance horses. He asked that
I take her out and lunge her a bit to get her really hot.
I told him it wouldn't even warm her up. I had to race her
hard up and down the back trail to make her break a sweat.
But, no problem with the heart rate, no A-Fib, no nothing.
Later, we figured that all Pharalina really needed was electrolytes.
I hadn't taken any salt with me to the ride. And I didn't know
what electrolytes were. (This, BTW, was about 14 years ago).
So, you can feel terrible for awhile. But as long as you learn
from the experience, you should go on.
-- Wendy\|/ /\ -O- /**\ /|\ /****\ /\ / \ /**\ Here there be dragons / /\ / \ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\/\/\ /\ / / \ / \ / \/\/ \/ \ /\/ \/\ /\ /\/ / / \/ \ / / \/ /\ \ / \ \ / \/ / / \/ \/ \ / \ \ / / \/ \/\ \ / \ / / \ __/__/_______/___/__\___\__________________________________________________
Wendy Milner HPDesk: wendy_milner@hp4000 Training Development Engineer HP-UX: wendy@fc.hp.com Mail Stop 46 Telnet: 229-2182 3404 E. Harmony Rd. AT&T: (970) 229-2182 Fort Collins, CO, 80525 FAX: (970) 229-4292