This is a training issue and while I feel that part of every conditioning ride should be practice trotting out and trotting in circles - that's a personal opinion and nothing more. My horse will trot out, even when he is dead tired, on queue without any external help. If he would not trot out at a check I would pull. He is been trained to trot on voice command. He's not very animated about it but he will trot out, stop turn around and trot back - usually trying to snatch a bit of grass along the way. While some horses need the be hazed - it should not be disallowed, but I do think the fact that it has to be hazed is a piece of information that should be used in the vet's evaluation. We don't need a rule.
The vet to some extent has to use his/her perception, experience, knowledge and intuition of the horse along with all the parameters to evaluate the condition. The CRI is a very important parameter and for the life of me I don't see why it is not used on every check. It doesn't take any more time. After the first rush for the first 25 miles where the Jbird can be quite a hand full - he becomes quite mellow. At a ride last year I had a vet who we hadn't seen before check us at the 35 mile check. He said he looked tired. He took the pulse and we trotted off and back. The CRI went from 60 to 48. He commented that he must not be that tried after all (and he wasn't). We don't need any more rules right now. T Steph Teeter wrote: > >RR>>2. NO chasing hazing of horses by anyone at the VC to obtain a trot. >Crops for unruly horses only, NOT to make a horse trot. > >This isn't a big issue to me - often it really is a matter of training and >technique. I would not recommend pulling a horse or denying completion >simply because it is not willing to trot out w/o hazing. I don't agree with >this. > =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
