Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

>Coming myself from the competitive world of eventing, dressage, foxhunting, and driving -- and having done so with many different types and sizes of breeds -- I listened to these endurance riders say that they felt many of the great endurance horses of the past -- those that were non-Arab -- would NEVER have been able to compete AND WIN with today's standards.  The original pulse of 72 allowed ALL TYPES and sizes of breeds to shine .. and more importantly... to win.  Were these early riders so bad, and the stats for metabolic problems that horrible, that the lower pulse criteria found an way to sneak in and eliminate many of these "higher pulse" horses... and ponies... to be effectively and very successfully, thrown out of the competition?

 

And in the days of the 72 pulse, horse deaths were simply taken in stride--something that most of us do not find acceptable.  One of the last rides in the NW that insisted on keeping the 72 pulse logged at least one horse death per year--until they were pretty much forced to have tighter standards.

 

As to whether the "horses of old" that won under that system could still win today---yep, absolutely.  I rode back then, too, and the one thing that separated those top horses out from the others was that they progressively recovered.  Typical scenario---two horses would come into a vet check hell bent for election.  One horse would recover into the 50's or lower in 15 minutes, and the second one would barely meet the 72.  Both would take off together.  The former horse would win, and the latter horse would be chasing him all the way in, and end up with jugs hanging.  What happens today, instead, is that the former horse comes in, recovers to 60, gets his time, does his hold, and leaves.  The second horse comes in, takes 20 minutes to get to 60, then gets his time--and since the entire Top Ten has now left, he leaves at a much slower pace and completes just fine.  Or he doesn't meet criteria, and gets pulled--but does not have his life jeopardized.  Or, to be more accurate--he has been through this scenario already at previous checks, and is no longer running with the horse up front, and is just fine.

 

I've heard the yammering from riders too about how they can't meet the pulses.  And you know what?  The first time I ran a ride at 56 and had to practically shout down the peanut gallery that claimed they couldn't make it, I had nearly half a dozen of the most vocal come up to me after the ride, apologize for their conduct, and tell me that it was a piece of cake.

 

You are right that pulse is not the be-all or the end-all.  But the bottom line is that lower pulses have all but elimated deaths and treatments on courses where they were commonplace in the "old days."  Now we have to figure out how to address the remaining problems that are NOT addressed by simply lowering pulses. 

 

FWIW--almost all non-recovery pulls with which I've dealt have been with horses hanging well over 72.  So these horses would not be progressing in any event.  What the lower pulses have done, rather than eliminating horses from competition, is to slow down horses who have the desire and the heart to go fast but not the fitness or metabolic capability to do so.  And these are the at-risk horses....

 

Heidi