Re: RC: Metabolic Pulls at Tevis

[DreamWeaver <karen@chaton.gardnerville.nv.us>]

At 01:02 PM 07/22/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>The thing that was interesting was that he also said that
>maybe there should be a qualifying ride for those who want to do Tevis.
>Hopefully that won't happen. I guess we all need to learn something from
>these statistics.

Well, I've been running more of the #'s on all of the non-finishers 
(riders).  And I have found this:

It doesn't matter.

Having a qualifying ride for Tevis would make no difference.

You are just as likely to get pulled if you have 0-250 miles as you are if 
you have 2000+ miles.

And you are just as likely to complete too.

Horses and riders were pulled that had 100% completion rates and a lot of 
miles, and horses completed that had zero completion rates, or the riders 
had only done one or two LD's.

A few did this ride as their first 100.

I think though (and this is just my opinion) that if you take the 2000+ 
mile "hot shoes" out of the field (since, if you are going for it you are 
more likely to get pulled), then you probably are more likely to complete 
this ride if you have more than a thousand or two miles.

Est. 1/3 of the riders that did complete had less than 500 miles.

I'll do the horses next and see if their # of miles had anything to do with 
whether or not they completed.  It would be nice to know if their 
experience level has anything to do with whether or not they get treated on 
this ride.  I think that if they had actually weighed all of the horses 
before, during and after this ride they might have been able to correlate 
the weight loss to the horses experience level (since that seems to be the 
case at other rides).  And the more weight a horse loses (hydration), the 
more likely it is to need an IV, right?

I also think that, regardless of experience, this shows that just because 
somebody *does* have a lot of miles or has been doing this a long time, 
doesn't mean that they are all that brilliant when it comes to getting a 
horse thru a hard 100.  Some people do have bad luck, but most problems 
occurred because either the horse/rider wasn't ready and/or because the 
rider wasn't paying attention.  What I'm trying to say is that making entry 
requirements might eliminate a rider with almost no AERC miles but who is 
an excellent horse person and it might allow entry to somebody with 3000 
miles who only completes half the time and has no consideration for their 
horse.  Just something to think about.

Happy Trails,

Karen
in NV