Re: RC: judging a book (or a horse) by its cover

["Jerry Fruth" <hikryrdg@evansville.net>]

Now I'm really confused.  Susan is telling us that weight DOES matter! 
Just goes to show, given enough time, almost any researcher will change
their minds.... Susan, are you going to go to the National Championship to
do some real research?  Best.... Jerry
Hickory Ridge Arabians web page:
http://www.evansville.net/~hikryrdg

Standing JABASK KNIGHT
On Fri, 30 Jul 1999, Susan Evans Garlinghouse wrote...
>
>>It is not up to the individual to decide if a horse is overweight or not.
>It
>>is up to the rider and the ride vet to make sure that the horse can
>>start/continue the ride successfully.
>
>
>I agree.  There's one other point that I failed to mention.  After
>collecting data for two years, I had a pretty good idea of how well a horse
>would do based on how thin he was---very simply, excessively thin horses
>have a much higher incidence of pulling, regardless of any other factor.
>So, just for fun at the '98 Tevis, I wrote down a "Susan Predicts" list of
>forty horses that *I* thought shouldn't have started---not because they were
>lame or out of shape by the usual standards...I just thought that they were
>thin enough that, based on the statistics, they had close to a zero chance
>of finishing.  (And no, I didn't say that to the rider---anybody that says
>anything other than Good Luck, Have Fun or How Can I Help You So You Can
>Sleep the night before a 100 mile ride deserves to be beaten to death).
>
>Well, of those horses, I was right 36 out of 40 times, or about 90% of the
>time.  Pretty good.  BUT, there were FOUR horses that the statistics said
>didn't have a chance, yet those riders got just the same shiny Tevis buckle.
>Apparently I neglected to explain to the horses that they had no chance of
>finishing. :-)  One of those horses even had the audacity to finish in the
>top twenty or so, and science be damned. :-)
>
>So the point here is that you can predict and crunch numbers and tell a
>rider that statistically he should save his money and go home---but how do
>you pick the 36 that really should go home and how do you pick the four that
>will beat the odds?  This certainly isn't an argument for deluding yourself
>into thinking that you're the exception and will always be the Chosen One
>even though your horse looks like a hairy hatrack.  But it does just point
>out that this is a fickle sport involving a live creature that doesn't
>always listen to what the books say.  And that being the case, IMO the ride
>management and ride vets definitely should continue to weed out the horses
>that are so obviously infirm or ill that even starting would be a disservice
>to the horse.  Beyond that, until human beings become a lot more omnipotent
>about predicting the future, then we should trust the ride vets to spot
>trouble during the ride and pull the problem horses before it becomes a
>disaster.
>
>Just my opinions, of course. :-)
>
>Susan G
>
>
>
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