Re: RC: Getting Pulled

[David LeBlanc <dleblanc@mindspring.com>]

I'm going to reply to this one, since it is before the flaming all started.
 Can't we discuss things without getting personal about it? Geez. We can
have different opinions without calling each other names.

At 05:54 PM 4/27/00 -0700, DreamWeaver wrote:

>I think that they need to have more options.  Right now we have RO = rider 
>option, L = lame, M = metabolic and I guess there is also OT = over 
>time.  Are there more?  There should at least be RI = rider injured or HI = 
>horse injured.  I just think that RO is far too vague.  I think that RO 
>should be used for when the rider wants to pull because something just 
>doesn't seem or feel right, but the horse passes the vet check.  I guess we 
>could add categories like RW = rider wimped. :^)  And if a horse dies, how 
>would that be logged?  RO....yeah, I chose not to continue, no use riding a 
>dead horse.....(said jokingly)

I think this is the best point - I agree with Heidi about wanting to have
more data.  I need to get back to it, but I've been doing some crunching of
the ride results looking at completion rates with respect to a lot of
factors - ride length, what region the ride is in, time of year, etc. etc.
Pretty interesting stuff. It would be nice to know -why- horses and riders
did not complete.

For example, in about 2 years worth of results, 86% of all LD riders
completed, 82% of all 50 mile riders completed, and about 60% of all 100
mile riders completed.  I find it interesting that the difference between
LD and 50 mile riders is so small, but the drop for 100's is so sharp - it
even extends to the 75 mile range - a 75 mile rider is almost as likely as
a 50 mile rider to finish - that last 25 miles gets a lot of them.

One way to interpret this is that the lower the completion rate, the more
risk of injury to the horse, so doing a 100 before you're really ready is
probably the most dangerous type of ride to the horse. However, absent real
data, it is hard to come to that conclusion - how many of those pulls are
due to the rider being tired/wet/cold? (Something Heidi pointed out to me
at the PNER convention)

I come down on the side of having more categories - record whether it was
lameness, metabolic or injury, and also record whether it was rider option
- in general, these are likely to be less severe injuries, or perhaps just
smarter riders.  For example, I saw a horse get pulled because another
horse went nuts in the vet check line and kicked him. You've also got cases
where the rider isn't fit to continue (though I doubt we need to classify
these as metabolic or lameness <g>)

<joke - please do NOT take seriously!>
Then we could even have the malfunction award given to the horse with the
most pulls for the year, and the nitwit award given to the rider with the
most pulls...
</joke>

I also see value for buyer education - no one wants to unknowingly buy a
horse to do 100's that consistently comes up lame at 80 miles.  It might
also be of value to record the distance at which the pull happened.  That
same horse might turn out to be a fine 50 mile horse.

One last point - people can and do tell lies.  You're going to have noise
in the data.  It is just a fact of life.  Noisy data is usually better than
none at all.


David LeBlanc
dleblanc@mindspring.com