Re: RC: Pull information

[Teresa Van Hove <tvanhove@uswest.net>]

I like Teddy's suggestion of withdrawn -or rider decision
vs. vets decision.  If a horse passes a VC, but the rider
decides to pull anyway for a minor, or early problem; thats
good horsemanship in my book.  I think there are 3 kinds
of L or M pulls.

A) horse passed the vet check but rider feels that 
going on may aggravate condition and pulls anyway.

B) rider knows horse will fail VC, either beforehand
or from hearing the parameters or watching horse out of
corner of eye at trot-out.  Mutual decision that horse
is a lameness or metabolic pull between rider and vet.

C) horse fails VC.  Rider insists that "old Joe" always
does this and is fine, and badmouths vet for pulling 
them anyway. 

It might be helpful to distinguish A and B pulls for 
veterinary stats/education (ie a Rider metabolic is
how often something masked by adrenalin if the horse was
VC'd right after meeting criteria?)  Also nice to
acknowledge skilled horsemanship when the rider senses
a problem before it gets to a point of presenting 
clinical signs to a vet.   

We don't need, in fact it would be absolutely wrong,
to publish B vs C.  As has been said, consistent C folks 
get to be known.  Some vets do try to scare everyone 
whose horse is not perfect -  conscientious riders
might disagree with a vet sometimes. (Though these
tend not be badmouthers.)  

I don't think a rider should be able to say RO
pull w/o having passed the vet check.  In fact I 
thought this was already a rule? Having Rider M,
Rider L, and Rider W (rider wimped out) would give 
better data for research/education as I said above.   

-- 
Teresa Van Hove
Co-Manager Long X Rides
"http://www.users.uswest.net/~tvanhove/LONGX.html"