Vet Checks -- East Meets West

[Roberta Jo Lieberman <woik@home.com>]

Angie wrote:
>>Rode the last half of the ride with 2 other horses. We paced fine, it was
VERY dry.  One thing I've never understood about this course is why
management never puts out water.<<

Rode my first West Coast endurance ride this weekend -- Manzanita! 
I had heard about, and finally got to experience firsthand, some of the
contrasts between Eastern and Western endurance rides. In the East
(where most trails have plenty of grazing and cold-running streams along
the way), there is a strong tradition of "having a crew," and people
without support often believe they are at a disadvantage. In the West,
where it's dry and deserty and checks are often inaccessible to crews,
it has become customary at some (many?) rides to turn the vet checks
into virtual smorgasbords for people *and* horses. Norco Riverdance and
Manzanita (others?) fit that category -- in spades.

As April and I arrived at VC1 ("Lost Valley" -- a small area scratched
out of the middle of nowhere, it seemed), we encountered at least a half
dozen watering tanks AND separate sponging tanks...horses were milling
around in very tight quarters, eating from shallow black feed pans
scattered on the ground, some with bran mash and others with sweet feed
slurpies. There were flakes of alfalfa and grass hay everywhere, plus
cut-up apples and carrots. You and your horse could munch your way
through the vetting line, which also ran right by the people food
table..where we could gorge on red grapes, fresh cantaloupe chunks,
drinks and donut holes...

In between vet checks, we came upon spring-fed water troughs with cool
clear water...one on-trail stop even had volunteers offering home-made
cookies and ice-cold Gatorade to the riders. In every check were more
vittles for equine and human. Oh, and I forgot to mention the hordes of
volunteers offering to hold your horse and take P&Rs. Here you just
shout out "P&R!" and someone magically appears to take your horse's
pulse--as many times as you wish. I had heard that this was the custom
out here...and thought it sounded very chaotic. Eastern vet checks are
generally much more structured...no crewing allowed in the P&R
box...carefully delineated in and out gates...But somehow, it all seemed
to work (at least when you're not in a big hurry), and I don't think
anyone had to wait. The vet lines were pretty long, though, probably due
to sheer numbers. There were 80-some horses on the 25 and over 50
entries on the 50.

Although I agree with an earlier poster that for a 100-miler there is
nothing like your own crew, the setup out here (at least on this ride!)
makes riding fifties really nice. Some of our Eastern rides do have
snacks for the riders and most all have ample horse water in the checks,
but I wonder whether other regions might consider adopting some of these
Western practices -- at least the food part <g>.

Perhaps the different customs among regions are just another facet of
what makes endurance an endlessly fascinating and compelling sport. 

Bobbie, who didn't get a headache, and April, who was a good girl on her
first endurance ride


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