Learning Lessons

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

K S SWIGART katswig@earthlink.net


Tom said:

>There was enough information for me--guess you had to have been there. The 
>lesson was simple in the extreme--"watch where you are going". I told you 
>what I saw, and what I concluded--your extrapolations are your own, and 
>misinformed. You're attempting to make a large mystery out of a relatively 
>simple event. 

The lesson of "watch where you are going" shouldn't require a horse to 
break its leg in order to be learned, and in fact, even if not watching 
where you are going doesn't lead to horses with broken legs, riders 
should still do it :)  So, even though "watch where you are going" is a 
good lesson; _I_ personally think the "Posse Ride" story (where a 
spectator got trampled and hospitalized) was a much better example of 
that particular lesson, but when some people said that rider should be 
responsible for, and in control of their horses even when racing at 
speed many people responded, "No, riders should be allowed to gallop 
their horses out of control and ride management should be aware that 
riders are RACING on the course and keep all obstacles off the trail."

So maybe the lesson learned from the Syria incident is that ride 
management shouldn't have sand berms on or near the course that horse 
might ride into and maybe break their legs.

>Once you've incurred a fracture, you may or may not see signs of it prior to 
>complete breakdown. (That was lesson # 2) There are 6 steps to take when 
>injury occurs: Accurate diagnosis, immediate treatment, determine the cause, 
>eliminate the cause, rehabilitate, refit. If you skip etiology (cause), 
>you're doomed to repeat the same circumstances again and again. This happens 
>in the racehorse industry a lot--particularly because a whole art of passing 
>the blame has developed and misinformation rules. This leads to confusion and 
>causes are either ignored or watered down with  enough extrapolated >possibilities that corrective action is impossible.   

>In this case, the etiology was clear--after the fact of the full fracture. 

It wasn't clear to me at all. You are GUESSING that the veering into 
the sand berm had anything to do with it. It might be a good guess, but 
the horse may have come into the race with a hairline fracture left 
over from some pasture accident (that's where MY horse broke his 
humerus).  Unless you tell me that the bone was x-rayed pre-race to 
determine this (which it may have, most riders don't routinely x-ray 
all their horses bones pre-ride just to ensure that they don't have 
subclinical fracture lines in any of their bones...but yours may).

And even if, when my horse was running around in his pasture, slipped 
and fell, knocked his leg on a fence post getting up he had shown no 
signs of injury (because the fracture was hairline instead of 
complete), _I_ wouldn't (even if I had been there to see it) have had 
the leg x-rayed "just to make sure."

Maybe that is the lesson that should be learned here; but I still won't 
do it.  I can't afford to have the vet out to x-ray my horse(s) every 
time I think they may have taken a misstep.

>And in this case there was no opportunity to intervene between cause and 
>effect. At any rate, the two lessons of the incident, for me, are precisely 
>as described above. Am I clear? Do you have further questions? 

The "watch where you are going" lesson is, of course, a good one.  But 
it certainly shouldn't take a horse breaking a leg for ANYBODY to learn 
such an obvious one.

The "some problems are subclinical before they become clinical" is also 
a very good lesson.  But knowing that, what would you have done 
differently in this case?  I'll give you the accuracy of your guess 
about the veering into the sand berm causing a hairline fracture (even 
though it is not sufficiently demonstrated to me).  Next time, if a 
horse veers into a sand berm (or takes some other misstep) during the 
race and moves off sound, what are you going to do?  ARE you going to 
stop immediately and do a complete diagnosis with x-rays and ultrasound 
to determine if there is some subclinical problem?  Are you going to 
ride to the next vet check and do the same thing?  I am just asking, I don't know what SHOULD be done.

I am NOT being facetious here.  I really want to know.  Now that people 
know that horses can have subclinical compromises to their 
musculoskeletal structure which may manifest themselves some where 
along the course by the leg fracturing (virtually) spontaneously, WHAT 
are they going to do differently?

Me?  One of the things I have learned (and am constantly telling my 
clients and friends this too) is that the $50 spent having the vet come 
out to do an ultrasound either right before or right after a strenuous 
exercise when you are dealing with a horse that has had a prior 
tendon/ligament injury is money well spent.  However, I even have 
trouble getting my VET to do this.  I tell him I want him to come out 
and do a recheck on my horse's leg, and he says "For God's sake, just 
ride your horse!"

At which point I tell him, "Just humor me."  And I only do this on horses
That I have either currently or previously had some evidence of injury to 
The tendons/ligaments.  I don't do it on all of them.

_I_ think that this is a valuable lesson.  The question, "what can we 
do to keep subclinical problems from biting us during endurance rides?" 
is a valid question. But the information that Tom provided in his post 
didn't even come close to answering it (at least not for me). So LET'S 
discuss it.  All of US.  I tried to get the list to discuss "what do we do
in the face of EVIDENCE of an injury?" and there were no takers.

So now I will put the question differently.  What do we do in the face 
of NO evidence of an injury?  "Is the horse showing any signs of 
lameness?" apparently is not good enough.  If we want to avoid these 
circumstances in the future, what DO we need to do differently?  

Other than, of course, "watch where you are going and don't let the 
horse take any missteps...either on or off course."

As I said, I am not being facetious.  I consider this a very valid question 
that all endurance riders would do well to address, especially as the level 
of competition becomes more intense and the speeds become higher.  In these 
instances, the margin for error is much less and the opportunities for 
catastrophe are much greater.  What I most definitely don't want to happen is 
for people to just shrug their shoulders, and accept the injuries a just being
part of the game because diagnosing them is difficult.  If you tell me, "No
diagnosing injuries is easy and the right thing to do is obvious" then yes, 
I am missing something, please enlighten me.

kat
Orange County, Calif.