Hold times, etc

["John & Sue Greenall" <greenall@vermontel.net>]

I really liked what Wendy M. stated in her post and I think she is 
dead on in respect to not giving our horses enough time to eat at 
holds.  That and adding more water opportunities on the trail might 
just get our horses through in good shape.  Having to go from the 
P&R box directly to the vet makes for different strategy in my 
experience.  Riders are allowing their horses to eat before they 
pulse in so that the horse can get some guts sounds going after 
tanking down a bucket of water.  Going back for a recheck due to 
low gut sounds takes away valuable "down" time for the horse.  I 
was surprised to see how short and few the holds were at the PAC 
which was an FEI ride.  Crewing was also very limited.  The same 
goes for the Festival of Champions FEI 50 mile ride, no crewing.  
Wendy stated that FEI rides have longer holds, yet I have seen the 
opposite.  It would be pretty easy to do a study of hold times at 
rides during hot/humid weather and see if they are the same as 
hold times in nice or cool weather (I bet they are!).  Perhaps we as 
ride managers and vets should consider the value of longer hold 
times and apply such next season and see what happens.  
John and Sue Greenall
mailto:greenall@vermontel.net
http://www.vermontel.com/~greenall


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.    
Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/RideCamp   
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=