In a message dated 04/25/2006 4:48:21 PM Pacific Standard Time, ranch@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
The proposal is an interesting concept, and may have lots of merit. Before asking for a rule change I would like to see some data gathered.
1. Is taking more than 15 minutes to recover predictive of trouble later in the ride?
2. Is 15 minutes a magic number or should it be 10 or whatever?
3. How many horses who are on a pace that probably will allow for a placing have >15 minute recoveries?
4. Is there an effect from high humidity and temperatures?
I also like the proposal. I think in theory it does have a lot merit and it makes sense. There are two issues that do concern me if something like this was implemented. The first is that RM would have to be much more careful about recording the "In time" for the vet check and where the in timer is located in regards to the P&R area. Having a stream lined efficient vet check would become much more important if time is going to eliminate someone from the competition venue and put them to the completion venue. It wouldn't be fair to riders to loose time if there is a back up because of the lack of P&R personal. I have been to rides where the in timer is quite a distance from the P&R area and the water in the opposite direction of both. It wouldn't be fair if it takes 5 minutes to walk to the P&R area and you only have 10 minutes to recover to stay in the competitive division. The second area of concern would be that I would not want to penalize horses that do not have incredible recoveries. I think 15 minutes is a pretty fair time range but for some horses 10 minutes might be cutting it close. We had a very good endurance horse that would take 6-7 minutes to recover regardless of his fitness level. He was a top endurance horse and has the record to prove it but he just didn't have great recoveries. So if there is a back up at the P&R area or if I wanted to let a horse like this drink before presenting for P&R should he be eliminated from the competitive division because I took longer then 10 minutes to present for P&R??
I do believe that something like this would be great but the details would really have to be worked out. Requiring a stricter time element I believe would require volunteers to be more experienced and RMs to be more organized. For example, at 20 MT this year, a volunteer P&R person took almost 5 minutes to get my horse's pulse. He was new and very nice and I was OK with this BUT I would have been stressing a lot more if this same thing happened with a very strict time constraint that would have forced me into a completion only division.
Great recoveries are a sign of a conditioned, talented horse and they can also be just genetics. I would hate to see good endurance horses with average recoveries eliminated from the competitive division because the time allowed was too strict. I also would hate to see RMs have more stress added to their rides because the strict time requirements would not allow for glitches that happen when most of your help is volunteers. I do believe that riders would have cause to complain if they were eliminated from the competitive division because of lack of enough P&R volunteers or inexperienced P&R volunteers caused a delay in getting a P&R in a timely manner.
