Re: RO

["Ed & Wendy Hauser" <sisufarm@mmmpcc.org>]

I have been reading this thread with some interest and have decided that I
have to put my $0.002 in.

1. I heartily support the AERC's  collecting as much information on pulls as
possible.
2. At the present time each head vet is to send in a sheet detailing each
pull.  Why, symptoms, comments, if fluid how much etc.  I assume that the
vet committee looks at these.
3. It would be more useful to the sport if someone read these and keyed them
into a data base which listed lots of information about the pulls so trends
could be followed.
4.  Arguing if a slightly off horse, that a rider decides to pull is a L, M,
or RO is a tempest in a teapot.  The amount of information so low that only
gross trends can be seen anyway.  My reasoning is this:
Lameness
Some horses are pulled because of a minor scrape that causes them some pain.
Not very significant either to our sport or the horse.  No matter what is
done, the horse will be fine in a couple of days.  Other horses are pulled
because they fall off of a cliff and sustain a life threatening injury.
That is significant to all  concerned.

The same with M:
Some horses are a bit dehydrated, are pulled.  A half hour later with no
medical intervention they are eating and drinking.  Two weeks later they
race and are fine.  No big deal.  Others crash, require surgery and never
race.  A very big deal.

The current system, on the public database, lumps these things all together
so and attempt to force a few records from RO to L or M will not produce any
useful statistics.

About all that could be concluded from these statistics would be very
general things like: Gee the Old Dominion seems to have more M's than a
usual ride, perhaps it is hot there and everyone should look for metabolic
problems.

My bottom line is: Don't fiddle with the pull codes on the ride results, but
improve reporting by vets and the handling of those reports later.

Ed and Wendy Hauser
1140 37th St.
Hudson, WI 54016
sisufarm@mmmpcc.org