Re: RC: Pull information

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/28/00 6:44:53 PM Pacific Daylight Time, 
tvanhove@uswest.net writes:

<< 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.  >>

My response to this is that this sort of distinction DOES get into 
finger-pointing and putting some sort of "brownie point" system on the 
rider's sense of responsibility.  That, IMO, WOULD lead to bad-mouthing, etc. 
if published.  As it is, the goal is to figure out WHY horses pull, not WHO 
pulled them, and I think that is an important distinction.  The question here 
is what causes horses not to get completions--are they lame, metabolic, 
overtime, or did the rider end up puking in the bushes and could not 
continue?  It does not matter WHO made this judgment call--only that it WAS 
MADE.  By hair splitting as to who makes the decision, then we DO get into 
patting "Jane" on the back for being responsible and "Sally" gets blacklisted 
for arguing with the vet.  And--I thought that was what we wanted to avoid 
here.

Another point in hair splitting as to who makes the decision--there is a lot 
of difference in vetting style.  Personally, after 19 years and head vetting 
250+ rides, I would still only put 8 riders in that last category.  But then 
I go out of my way to make the decision a "mutual" thing--even if it takes 
the rider half an hour of deliberation to "come around" to my way of thinking 
that the horse should not go on.  I know a lot of other vets do this, too, to 
try to foster rider responsibility and to encourage riders to communicate 
with the vets for the welfare of the horse, instead of acting like 
egotistical traffic cops.  OTOH, I have RIDDEN under vets who have the latter 
sort of mentality (most of them don't last long in this sport, because 
intelligent riders don't like to be treated that way and tend to complain to 
management).  I can remember one incident that STILL rankles in which my (now 
ex) husband presented a horse after a lengthy hold in the middle of a 100.  
The horse took about 3 "off" steps at the trot and then warmed up and was 
completely sound.  The ride vet never even laid a hand on the horse and 
actually REFUSED to watch him further--simply pronounced "He's tied 
up--you're OUT!"  My now-ex and I were BOTH astounded, and tried to get the 
vet to at least EXAMINE the horse, to no avail.  I continued on and finished 
the 100, and by the next morning when I had opportunity to work the horse up, 
I could find nothing wrong.  Took us 6-8 weeks more of here-and-there offness 
to find the problem--a strained plantar ligament in the back of the hock.  
While an exam might have still precluded this horse continuing on that day, I 
would have preferred a work-up and a pull or even to have even had the horse 
go one more check and to have FOUND the problem than to go on with a chronic 
problem the way he did.  The point in this context, though, is that this vet, 
under the "proposed" system, would have surely called this a "C" lameness 
pull, whereas a more experienced and competent vet would have delved into the 
problem (likely would have sent the horse on since there was NO more lameness 
after those three steps, unless we could have found tenderness in that 
plantar ligament)--either way, it would have either been a continuation or an 
"A" or "B" pull under the above classification.  

Nope, I don't want to see this become a referendum on rider attitudes--let's 
leave it as a fact-finding attempt to help horses.

Heidi