Vet Student Ride (long)

[Trish Dowling <dowling@skyway.usask.ca>]

As the culmination of an elective for 3rd year veterinary students on vetting endurance rides taught by Trisha 
Dowling, DVM, the 2nd Annual Western College of Veterinary Medicine Limited Distance Ride was hosted by 
Trisha and Brian Zwaan at their farm in Saskatchewan on April 17. This is the first ride of the Saskatchewan Long 
Riders' season and 30 horses and riders turned out to give 18 veterinary students experience in vetting rides. We 
had 12 first time riders entered, and Paddi Sprecher came all the way from Alberta to coach the newbies through 
their first ride (her most important advice - always carry something to use as toilet paper!). The large turnout gave 
the students a chance to evaluate all levels of fitness - from race-ready 50 and 100 mile horses to show ring 
horses who hadn't been out of the arena before. They also got to evaluate a wide variety of breeds and types: 
Arabian, American Saddlebred, Arab/Saddlebred, Morgan, Morab, Quarter Horse, Thoroughbred, Standardbred, 
Appaloosa, and Fjord. Saturday morning was breezy and cool and the veterinary students worked quickly to get all 
the excited horses through their pre-ride exams. "Head Vet", soon to be Dr Paul Neider introduced his colleagues 
and informed the riders of the pulse criteria and vet check and finish line procedures. Riders quickly tacked up for 
the 10:30 start time and headed out on the first 12.5 miles of trail. The vet students then scrambled into their cars 
and headed for the vet check at the Dean of the vet school's farm. The "hot shoes" set a blistering pace and arrived 
at the Dean Alex Livingston's farm in under an hour. But that gave the students a great chance to see heart rate 
recoveries, as they had set a conservative pulse criteria of 60 BPM. The riders had to work to cool the horses 
down to meet criteria and then to prevent them from becoming chilled by the cool wind during the remainder of the 
hold time. During the hold, all horses were thoroughly checked by the students and had to pass a HRRI. When the 
frontrunners took off for the finish at Zwaan Farm, half the vet students raced to their cars to get there ahead of 
them, while the remainder took care of the new riders and slower horses coming along at a more conservative 
pace. Three new riders decided to pull at the vet check and were trailered back. Since this was a limited distance 
ride, the "winner" is determined as the first horse to reach pulse criteria after crossing the finish line. So the 
"walk-in" finish was followed by frantic sponging to bring heart rates down to 60. In this race, "Ambreshan", a nine 
year old Arabian ridden by Vikram Misra (a professor of virology at the WCVM) was first across the finish line and 
first to reach the criteria of 60 BPM. After all 27 horses had finished and completed their post-ride exams, as a 
group, the veterinary students evaluated the first five finishers for the Best Condition award.

After all the horses were checked and settled at their trailers, riders and vet students packed into Brian and 
Trisha's living room. The entry fee for this ride was a pot luck supper item for the hungry vet students and a $10 
donation to the ‘99 Pan American Endurance Championships. The $300 raised will sponsor completion plaques in 
the name of the WCVM Student Chapter of the American Association of Equine Practitioners and the 
Saskatchewan Long Riders.

The awards ceremony was slightly delayed. Those of you from the kinder climates have got to understand that the 
harsh Canadian winters breeds a special kind of man - like something out of an old John Wayne movie. They like 
to ride hard - so endurance appeals to ‘em. They refuse to wear Spandex tights (there a few exceptions) or admit 
they have on silk long underwear under their Wranglers (not to mention any names, Bert Sutherland...). After a 
gruelling 25 mile race, they do carbohydrate loading the Canadian way - with that VERY strong Canadian beer 
(they make disparaging remarks about Umerikun beer!), and smoke Cuban cigars (cuz they can buy ‘em legally 
here!). And on Saturday, they got to show their manliness even more. Just as we were all chowing down, our 
neighbour called and frantically said "Help, our haystack is on fire!" So Brian announced, "Women and children 
(vet students), you stay and eat. Men - we've got to go fight a fire!" So the brave men of the Saskatchewan Long 
Riders put down their beers and cigars and packed in the truck and went off to save the neighbourhood from the 
fire. Eventually, they came back, smoky and proud of themselves, and we finally got the awards handed out. Since 
this ride is specifically to train the veterinary students and is an LD ride, we only give a special prize for Best 
Condition. In this case, it was very close - between the first place finisher and the third place finisher, the one man 
ad campaign for the American Saddlebred breed on Rindecamp: Jerald Thiessen on Zeus, a 13 year old, 
Arabian/Saddlebred. The horses had identical vet scores and only eight minutes separated the finishing times, so 
rider weight became the deciding factor. So we gleefully presented a Vetavision sweatshirt to the "Fat Boy" Jerald 
Thiessen. In his acceptance speech, Jerald defended himself by stating that "Men are like trees, they add a new 
ring to the trunk every year." (Y'all may remember that Jerald is the man we auctioned off on Ridecamp a few 
weeks ago as crew for the ‘99 PAC. He was sold to Lari Shea for a substantial contribution to the ‘99 PAC - but 
maybe Lari will agree to letting us redo the auction as Paddi Sprecher had a great idea - if we auction him off by 
the POUND we'd raise more money!). Jerald is also one of the "I reserve the right to do damage to my brain" (by 
riding without a helmet) crowd, and we unfortunately added fuel to his fire as the only rider injury of the weekend 
occurred when a rider poked herself in the eye with the chin strap of her helmet and had to go to the emergency 
room the morning of the ride.

We would like to thank everyone that rode or helped out with this tremendous learning experience for the vet 
students: Janice Sutherland, Head timer; Glen Cartwright of Schering-Plough Animal Health, Vet check timer; Dr 
Don Hamilton, Vet supervisor at the vet check; Klea Talbot, new president of the SCAAEP and Ride Secretary. 
The sport of endurance riding depends on good veterinarians, and there are now 18 veterinary students in western 
Canada with ride experience and Trisha has a list of their summer addresses and phone numbers if there are any 
Canadian ride managers looking for volunteers over the summer.  First and second year veterinary students have 
been to P&R training sessions, and Trisha also has a list of their names and numbers for volunteering at summer 
rides as well - just email for the lists. The SCAAEP will be hosting the 2nd Annual WCVM Endurance and 
Competitive Trail Ride Challenge as a two-day ride over the Labour Day weekend, on trails just north of Saskatoon, 
so please come and support the vet students. The April cover photo of Endurance News was taken at last year's 
ride.

Cheers,
Trisha


Trisha Dowling, DVM, MS, Diplomate ACVIM & ACVCP
Associate Professor, Veterinary Clinical Pharmacology
Western College of Veterinary Medicine
Saskatoon, SK S7N 5B4
306-966-7359/FAX 306-966-7376




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