Ridecamp: Re: [RC] musings re "the good old days"

> Maybe I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but I'm not so sure things
> were so wonderful from the horse's perspective.  I've talked to vets that
> talk about lame or thumping horses being allowed to go on that these days
> would be pulled in a heartbeat (and saw the same thing for myself).  You
> sure didn't hear about commonplace nine hour 100s and sub four-hour 50s
> (though maybe there were...Bob?) back then.  I suspect there weren't as
many
> rides available and except for the trailer race crowd, horses got more
> off-time between rides instead of riding back to back top ten rides week
> after week.  I know of more than one horse that won a big, hard 100-mile
> ride back then without anything more than a little hay and water, was
> supposedly "retired" but in reality had so little kidney function left he
> couldn't handle anything more than standing in a pasture looking exhausted
> for the rest of his life.  I think it was alot more commonplace then
anyone
> let on, and I think that's *still* more commonplace than we're admitting.

Having been around "back then" myself, I'll make the following comments:

1)  You are correct that the mileage was not available.  The result was that
more people tried to run fast.  I think that was even harder on the horses
than the long mileage seasons, personally.

2)  While there are certainly stories about the "wasted" horses, those still
happen today, and back then most of us only HAD one horse, and most horses
went year after year after year.  Were the "wasted" horses more commonplace?
Maybe. But the cases that come to mind off-hand were chronically overridden,
and flat-out abused, and had to "shop" ride vets (ie go to Ride B where
there were more lenient vets than at Ride A).  I do think vetting standards
have become more uniform, and that has shut some of the abusive sorts out,
or at least made them clean up their acts somewhat.  But it was always the
same small handful of people who "wasted" horses time and time again, while
the majority was pretty successful in keeping horses going for multiple
seasons.  We knew thumps were a bad thing back in the '70's--and many vets
took them seriously.  The one difference was that the fit-to-continue
criterion did not exist, so some horses were given completions that they
would not get today.  The biggest change I've seen in terms of preventing
metabolic crashes is not the CRI--but was the lowering of the pulse
criterion from 72 to 64 or lower, and changing the format from timed holds
where you raced in and had the entire hold time to meet the criterion vs the
virtually universally-used gate-into-hold system that we have now--that
caused the number of metabolic crashes to plummet.

3)  My own personal "bests" from "back then" were a 3:06 50 and an 8:46 100.
The first was only good for second place, and the latter for 6th place.
(Got nosed out at the finish for 5th because I parked in the wrong place,
and my horse thought he'd duck off to his rig, and I blew a stirrup, and
couldn't catch the other guy after that...)  Several of us were musing about
sub-8-hour 100's from yesteryear a few weeks ago, and came up with several
examples, from several regions.  Sub-9's were not particularly
extraordinary, on rides with the terrain and footing (and weather
conditions) to be conducive to that sort of thing.  So yes, we DID run that
fast "back then."

4)  As for the "handful of hay" comment--even "back then" we free-choiced
the grass hay, tried to get them to eat as much of it as possible in the
days prior to the ride, and let them eat grain at vet checks for more carbs.
Some people even fed oil (the horses I had back then didn't need it, as they
maintained their weight just fine)--the one improvement there is that we
didn't understand about it slowing down gastric emptying, and so didn't know
to discontinue it just prior to the race.

5)  The percentage of horses back then that were really high-caliber
prospects was actually higher than it is today--I am appalled sometimes when
I go to rides these days and see what passes for Arabians, in particular.
The trends involved in fad breeding impact many disciplines, as those horses
become predominant in the gene pool, and they are what is out there readily
available to buy.  But the good ones still are the consistent front-runners
and the consistent high-mileage horses--that hasn't changed a bit.

Have things improved?  For the most part, you bet they have.  Our knowledge
of WHY things work is far more intricate now, even though we had often hit
on some of the "right" answers back then by trial and error.  But it wasn't
all just yee-haw and let 'em die back then--in fact, I think many of today's
riders could benefit from mentoring by some of the fabulous horsemen who
rode "back then."  Before all the technology, one had to "read" one's horse
and be much more in tune to it--a skill that sometimes gets lost among the
fancy gadgets and the wonder supplements.

Heidi


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