Re: RC: RE: eating at stops

["Truman Prevatt, Ph.D." <truman.prevatt@netsrq.com>]

What you do will be mostly based on experience. In general you want to
get them P&Red as fast as possible to stop the clock. My approach is to
get off a ways out and walk or jog in. When I get to my area if he is
down he goes in. If not, I pull tack, put on the belt and start to
sponge. All the while his head is down eating. I let him eat but I know
the magic number (which is above parameters) where if I walk him over he
will be down when I get there.

So play with it a bit and find your won magic numbers. But for the most
part if my horse wants to eat, then by golly he will eat. Heck he even
tries to garb grass on the trot out.

Truman

Marlene Moss wrote:
> 
> With all this discussion of HR and eating at P&R stops, I finally got around
> to using the Heart rate monitor that I'd bought a couple months ago.
> I wasn't doing much of a ride last night because I'm doing my first LD
> tomorrow.  Anyhow, we trotted to the top of a hill and heart rate got up to
> 125 or so.  Stopped and stood in the shade - I didn't dismount, so not
> totally imitating a P&R stop.  Heart rate dropped to 48 in a minute and down
> to 40 after another minute or so.  Then it just seemed to hang at 40 for a
> few minutes.  So I let my mare eat.  Heart rate went up to 42-43 for half a
> minute and then dropped to 36.  So I pulled her away from the grass and made
> her stand in the shade again.  Heart rate back to 45 because she wanted to
> eat and kept tossing her head.  Only went back down to 38 after that.
> I'll have to keep experimenting with her to see if it makes more sense to
> not let her eat at all, or eat some to maximize recovery and then try to get
> her over her desire to be eating.
> Guess I should have starting playing around with this thing earlier!
> 
> Marlene
>
-- 
Truman Prevatt
Mystic “The Horse from Hell” Storm 
Buck's Mystic Karma
Rocket a.k.a. Mr. Misty
Jordy a.k.a. Bridger (when he is good)
Danson Flame - hey dad I'm well now and ready to go!

Brooksville, FL