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Howard,
I'll be the one to tell you you're nuts. In the 6 years I've
been competing, I've NEVER - not once - been pulled arbitrarily or without
cause. In some cases, the vet saw something that I couldn't see (I
remember a comment: "...there's a vague tightness in the hindquarters"), or was
caused by having to wait in line for 40 minutes on a cold wind-swept
ridge. But in all cases, my horse wasn't perfect and I didn't care that I
couldn't see it.
In the West, I've competed in both the NW and W regions and the
vet judging has been quite consistently good, and hasn't gotten "tougher" at
all. I ALWAYS point out the horse's physical issues to the vet at check
in, so that they are aware of his fault points or previous injuries in
advance. Vets are not at the ride to "thin out the herd". They
would certainly be striving to prevent horses from ending up on IVs, but
contrary to your vision of the world, they can't prevent you from riding your
horse to exhaustion in between vet checks.
Mike Sofen
My theory goes as follows, and it's really quite simple: The fewer
horses you have competing, the less the odds become that one of them
will get into serious trouble at a ride. I believe that most head
vets fear this as much, if not more, than the rider. They do not want
a horse standing under a tree hooked up to an IV at their ride, so to
eliminate the chances of that happening, any horse that comes into the vet
check that has anything wrong, or appears to have anything wrong, is going
to get pulled, and this does include horses that, technically, are "fit to
continue" using AERC guidelines. One of the many subjective areas
where the vets can "thin out the herd" is with the grade one or two
lameness, or using the CRI, whenever the second number is higher than the
first, even if the first number is in the low 40's. And, the
list goes on and on and on. Reduce the number of horses competing
and the chances of a really big problem occurring decrease dramatically.
There's one ride I've been to where the pull rate was so high one year,
that particular head vet was never asked to return. The vet went
overboard, and the Ride Manager knew this. It does happen!
Sometimes, in our efforts to save the whales, we end up draining the
ocean. The pendulum does swing, and it's currently traveling in the
opposite direction from where it used to be 20 or so years ago in this
sport. We need to bring it back closer to the middle, where it
belongs.
cya,
Howard (Bob is probably gonna tell me it's those 600 dollar horses that I
buy, to make myself feel good, that's the problem; or it's just
me)
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