 |
Re: [RC] Ulcers - oddfarm----- Original Message ----- From: "Howard Bramhall" <howard9732@xxxxxxx> To: <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2004 9:06 AM Subject: [RC] Ulcers If so, why on earth would we not allow them to be used during endurance competition? I have some more, but, please, anyone, whatcha think about all this? cya, Howard Well, here's what I think, not that it accounts for anything as I have been told. If your horse had COPD but it could be managed by drugs, would you still try to compete? If your horse had a stifle problem but could be managed with drugs, would you still try to compete? Granted, these problems are debilitating for our sport but you get the picture. We don't even allow bute which could be used for something like plain muscle soreness or a stone bruise. Zero tolerance means ZERO, ZILCH, NONE. Now, one of our top riders of this sport indicated to me that preventive drugs should be allowed for horses with ulcers. I was told I was misinformed about this subject. So I won't repeat what we were told at the convention in Chattanooga, or any of the other hundreds of publications that are out there about this subject. (Which I must have heard wrong and read wrong so how COULD I be right???) I will repeat my opinion. If your horse needs drugs, supportive, preventative or otherwise, to get through an endurance ride, you need to leave that horse at home. If the horse has ulcers, then is treated and they never return, during competition or any other time, then by all means ride on. How is it that people will bitch and piss and moan about the unethical treatment show horses get just to be able to compete and win, and yet some of those very same people would think it would be ok to use drugs, however mild they may be, to get an endurance horse across the finish line? Oh yeah, "To Finish Is To Win". Lisa Salas, Teh odd farm and Corona Ranch Howie, have a pre-purchase exam, even if the horse is free. It is not the people with money who do that, it is the horsemen and women who know there is no such thing as a free horse who have it done. ============================================================ The very essence of our sport is doing the trail as quickly as practicable, while keeping one's horse fit to continue. Taking the clock out of the equation makes it another sport altogether. The challenge is how to keep the sport what it is while honing our skills (both as riders and as those in control roles) in detecting where "the edge" is for each horse so that we don't cross it. ~ Heidi Smith ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
|