Ridecamp: Re: [RC] PULL CODES

> 1. The human nature factor - For most riders, having your horse pulled
> from a ride because of lameness or metabolic issues is fairly traumatic.
> We feel bad for our horse, it's a big disappointment, maybe even
> embarassment, and it represents some sort of failure. And knowing that
> your peers will see in the ride results that your horse was pulled and
> listed as L, or M, is not a cheerful thought.

Excuse me?  Of course it is stressful to pull.  But why WOULD you pull a
horse (assuming you are capable of going on yourself), unless you are
concerned that he is either becoming lame or becoming metabolically
compromised?  There is no more stigma in the reason for the pull being
listed than in having the pull listed in the first place.  Where did this
stigma become attached to the pull codes?  NOT ONCE in all the rides I've
vetted have I EVER had a rider complain about having their pull listed as
an L or an M, even when they made the choice themselves, and even when the
problem was so minor that I would have allowed the horse to go on.  Our
sport has on the whole been extremely supportive of riders who make
conservative decisions to pull.  There are certainly some individuals who
are resistant to being pulled at all, but on the whole, this has simply
not been a problem on rides where pull codes have been applied as
intended.  When riders pull their own horses, I've always discussed the
pull with them, and it is generally clear in both our minds why the rider
made the choice he or she did.  In actual practice, in the trenches at the
rides, this has been a non-issue, as far as I can tell.


> If allowing riders an option for a gracefull exit is in the best
> interest of the horse (the bottom line) then we should do so.

Again, the subject has never come up in all the rides I've vetted, when
the pull codes have simply been properly used to start with.  If there is
a lack of grace here, it is pretty nebulous.

> 2.  L or M simply does not always apply -  For statistical purposes it
> would be much more meaningful if L always meant the same thing "the
> horse was eliminated due to a grade III lameness".   Or M always meant
> 'the horse was eliminated do to metabolic dysfunction'.

Yes, it would.  But again, it doesn't matter who made the choice.  I've
had many riders come up to me and pull the horse prior to an exam because
of a grade III lameness.  So if we are quibbling about "grace" is this an
RO-L pull?  Doesn't matter.  If you want to add more meaning here, skip
the RO part, and add numbers to the pull codes, such as L-1, L-2, L-3 to
represent the grade of lameness.

>If we include
> anything less than the this, and include times when the rider thought
> the horse 'didn't feel right' or even include times when the rider
> thought 'if I continue, my horse really will be lame' then we are
> diluting the statistics and they become less meaningful.

Bottom line, at this point, is that because the data is minimal, the main
point of interest in collecting it was to break down the pulls into two
categories--are they due to biomechanical problems or due to systemic
problems?  As such, the degree isn't a factor.

Heidi




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