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[RC] 60 minutes at the finish - k s swigart

Leonard Liessens said:


I do really not understand why a '60 minutes' window
would be necessary at the end of a race (sorry, a ride...).
For doing what ?


Personally, I have always thought that this 60 minutes at the finish
window was strictly for the purposes of logistics/ride management.

If I have 60 minutes from the time that I cross the finish line in order
to vet in, I can do it at my leisure instead of obsessing about it, and
it is easier for the vets and ride management because the whole thing
can be more relaxed and nobody is worried about whether they are going
to make the cut off.

It also allows the vets (who may be treating horses that ARE in trouble
possibly having been brought there from somewhere out on the trail) to
focus their attentions on the horses who need the care and attention of
a vet and to "get around to" the horses that are "just showing for
completion" when they can, and the riders who are just showing for
completion won't be pressuring them to get it done, after all, they have
an hour to do so.

When _I_ present my horse for its final check is entirely a function of
how busy the vets are at the time.  And if that means that I wait around
for 45 minutes until I see that they aren't busy, then I wait.  It isn't
that it took my horse 45 minutes to "recover" it is because that was the
most convenient time to do it.

If the time allowed is shortened from 60 to 30 minutes, this will make
it so riders and vets will have less leeway in doing the check when it
is convenient.

Everybody I know who has had a horse that is showing some distress
doesn't take this attitude with respect to convenience, but gets to the
vet as soon as possible, and if my horse is "just showing for
completion" I will let that person see the vet ahead of me....as I
should.  For most of the horses in the ride, the completion check is a
minor formality, when it gets done is virtually irrelevant.

Shortening the time allowed to perform this minor formality and
inconveniencing virtually everybody (including vets who may be busy
treating horses that are distressed) so that you can catch 1 horse in
20,000 that is owned by somebody who wants to hide their compromised
horse from a vet for an extra 20 minutes or so in hopes of getting a
completion seems like overkill to me.

kat
Orange County, Calif.
:)



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