Re: Silver State Ride Results

[Tracey Ritter <tracey_ritter@yahoo.com>]

Silver State 50 Ride Result Status:

Well, in the spirit of hunting down what REALLY happened, I wrote to 
the vet who evaluated her horse, Dr. Barney Fleming, and have asked 
for his professional assessment based upon the controversy at hand.  
While I am a barefoot endurance advocate, it is more important to me 
that the correct and accurate information about how a person's 
barefoot horse performs at a gruelling ride be shared so that others 
can LEARN from their successes and *mistakes*, not REPEAT THEM!!!  
Trying to pass off a ride with glowing results when in fact the horse 
was barely sound (grade 2 lameness) at the finish doesn't seem like a 
big success story to me.  That person should have, from the very 
beginning, come out and said, "You know what?  I shouldn't have tried 
that other ride back to back like that, because it was just too tough 
for him to do after having completed the Sunland 50 just the weekend 
before.".  Now THAT is information we can work with.  Going on and on 
about how well your horse did over horrible terrain - when in fact 
perhaps that really wasn't the case - really perpetuates 
misinformation and gives folks the impression that they can go out 
and condition their horse like that, making room for all sorts of 
needless injuries.  

If you want to condition your horse to do that ride barefoot, and you 
condition all year on that trail, little by little, and your horse 
demonstrates after many months that he can handle the terrain with no 
problem, then that's probably a good place to start.  But doing 50s 
back to back on successive weekends - especially of the type of 
terrain that these two were - is lacking in common sense and rider 
objectivity.  That's something to learn from, alright... what NOT to 
do!  

Oy,Vey!  It is too bad that this has to come out, but I must agree 
that the lameness pulls aren't limited to unshod horses... there are 
plenty of lameness pulls on shod horses as well.  And true, the 
experience that Robyn had should NOT be considered a "One Rat Study" 
(I liked that one!).  Let's keep some common sense at hand, and we'll 
see what the doc has to say when he gets back to me.  I'll post what 
he says so that the group can see what came from the horse's mouth!

Kindest Regards,

Tracey Ritter (I'm having an Advil moment!)
Portland, OR (where, once you think it can't possibly rain any more, 
it DOES!)

On Wed, 28 Nov 2001 09:24:38 -0800 (PST), 
ridecamp-d-request@endurance.net wrote:
>Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 14:47:23 +0000
>From: "Nancy Mitts" <mitts_n@hotmail.com>
>To: april@jadawn.com
>Cc: Ridecamp@endurance.net
>Subject: RC:  Unidentified subject!
>Message-ID: <F52cCoHwfJiYqqCwupq0001fef3@hotmail.com>
>Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed
>I was assuming the the horse WAS okay at the first vet check. (I'm
>also
>assuming this was the ONLY vet check during the ride?) That is not
>the end
>of the ride. Were CRI's being performed post ride? I know that isn't
>common
>practice, but if we're really going to use the term "fit to
>continue" for
>completion it should be another complete check.
>Nancy Mitts
>April Johnson april@jadawn.com
>Nancy said:
>"I'd be willing to bet a CRI performed on this horse (if
>it was truly in pain) would have been greatly elevated."
>From another source that I won't reveal since I haven't cleared it
>with
>the source (I can contact if you wish): A CRI was done at the first
>vet
>check. It came out 62/62 and the vet cleared the horse to continue.
>April
>april@jadawn.com


-- 
Tracey Ritter, tracey_ritter@yahoo.com on 11/28/2001