Ridiculous Commentary: December 2009 Archives

Someone much smarter than me once said that there are two types of people on Earth: people who focus on the goals, and people who focus on the process.  

In my own life, I set very high goals, and I often focus on nothing but achieving those goals.  When I entered college, I decided that I wanted to graduate in two and a half years with a 4.0.  Incidentally, I accomplished one of these goals and came pretty close to accomplishing the other.  When I was 15, I accomplished my goal of riding in a two-star.  This Spring, I decided that I wanted to start an eventing website, and here we are.   Great, right?  As Lee Corso would say: not so fast my friend.

The FAKE tabloid headline from Tuesday is C, or #3: Performance Enhancing Beer.  While I am sure many members of Eventing Nation would argue that beer is performance enhancing, especially with respect to making a fool out of yourself, this was not a current news headline.  I heard that German scientists were planning to conduct such a study, but decided to drink all the beer themselves instead.

A) Partying at the Parade: Read more

B) DBUI-Driving Buggies Under the Influence: Full story

Four out of six commenters guessed right, and win the honor of having your name published: Pizz, subk, jo, and Anonymous.  Thank you to everyone for participating, and I promise that we are working on getting some legit prizes lined up for the new year.  Incidentally, Anonymous voted twice, differently each time, but we will forgive him/her because they are one of our most regular commenters.  If you can't think of a creative name, just throw out your area code or something.

Moving on to our Facebook contest, we had 8 friend requests after accepting our 99th Facebook friend Tuesday night.  Being a softy, I will give all 8 some publicity, but in the future we will just pick the request that hits the number exactly.  Welcome to Eventing Nation Keely Frank, April McClain, Courtney Young, Leslie Threlkeld, Elizabeth Bierman, Fiona Graham, Heidi Lilienthal, and Amy Fritz.

And, congratulations to Denmark for being the 51st country to visit Eventing Nation.  Go eventing.

I have to admit that I am surprised it took nearly two months to have the King of Pop as part of our 'News of the Weird' segment.  This 11 by 10 foot painting that Michael Jackson commissioned was recently sold at auction for $175,000.  The painting was entitled "Equestrian Portrait of King Phillip II."  MJ never saw the painting before his death.  Read more

Horses Can Count, which seems obvious if your coach has ever said "ok, do it correctly 3 more times and we can move on to something else."

Update: Click here for a cool photo tour of the USEA convention from Leslie Mintz, and click here for photos from the Hall of Fame Gala.  "I wasn't worried, they were worried."  Also, please consider donating to the USEA cardiovascular study.  The USEA endowment is matching donation up to $25,000 and Phillip spoke eloquently at the convention safety meeting about the importance of this study.  

And now my top ridiculous thoughts from the USEA convention:

1) The USEA leadership has done a great job in stewarding the USEA through these tough economic times.  The USEA made money last year, which is pretty rare these days if you turn on CNBC or talk to a small business owner.  I was also impressed with President Kevin Baumgardner's frankness with those who objected to the USEA's policies.  In every instance of objection that I saw this weekend, Kevin made sure that the objectors knew he understood their point, explained why the USEA was going in the direction that it was, and moved the conversation forward.  It would make a better story if I said something bad about the USEA's leadership, but I was impressed.

2) Jon Holling is going to be president of the USEF someday.  Put another way, we want Jon to be president of however many organizations we can convince him to lead.  Jon serves as Chair of the Professional Horseman's Council.  At the PHC's Open Forum this weekend, Jon convinced a bunch of longwinded and egotistical riders to stay on topic and within the schedule.  If he can do that, he is a born leader.

3) The horse market is improving, we think.  In talking with people that I consider the go-to horse salespeople in the US, the consensus is that sales have picked up over the last 3 months, which is good news for everyone out there who is trying to sell a horse.  Of course, by the time things really improve, people will have their jobs back and they will not want to sell their horses.

4) Eventing Nation could quadruple our traffic if I felt like printing even one of the crazy things that went down at the hotel bar.  All I will say is: buy stock in alcohol companies around late November next year.

5) I know I sound naive when I say this, but I was inspired by seeing so many people working hard to make our sport better this weekend.  Sure our sport has problems, but I don't see how we can possibly not figure them out with so many great people working together.  I was completely sick of writing about eventing by Sunday afternoon, but I was inspired to make Eventing Nation a better, stronger, funnier, more positive, more informative, and more accurate site to do our great sport justice.  Thank you for reading.  Go eventing.

About an inch of snow is on the ground here in Reston, VA, as part of Eventing Nation's in-depth weather coverage.  A special thanks to Area II for buying me lunch.  They provided boxed lunches free of charge to all convention-goers.  It was delicious and everyone seemed to enjoy it.  

12:45 PM-USEA Annual Membership Meeting: President Kevin Baumgardner opened the meeting.  The USEA entries and financials have survived the economic downturn well relative to other horse sports.  A big goal moving forward is to increase membership. The USEA is debt-free, something I always love to see in an organization or company.  The total operating revenue was $3,638,354 for 2009 and total operating expenses of $3,494,366.  Net Operating HQ had a profit of $52,490 and the Net Operating Profit from the Areas is $91,498. 

Completely unqualified statement warning disclosure: from just watching the financial news throughout the year, it seems like the USEA has fared better than many many other organizations.  A lot of credit should go to good leadership and a lot should go to great support by all the USEA members.  Now back to what is going on.

A standing ovation for Treasurer Gary Stegman, who is cycling out of the position after this year due to term limits.  Now a lot of standing ovations, and more ovations for various commendations and awards.  The USEA staff members who have served for 10 or more years are being honored.  I would try to type these names, but I am afraid of misspelling them.  President Baumgardner stressed the incredible cohesiveness of the USEA staff.  

Now vote on nominations or members of the Board, in the form of an en masse vote.  Unanimously approved.  

Now there is a long discussion right now about formally establishing a President Emeritus position where the outgoing USEA president would serve in an advisory position for one year after leaving the position of president, if approved of by the Board.  There are some concerns by membership about a smooth succession, and about an 'old-boys club' taking hold of the USEA, but the Board of Governors is eloquently speaking for the proposal.  I don't feel that I understand the issue well enough, and arguments are coming too quickly for me to write accurately about the topic.  I am sure that the USEA and Chronicle will have great coverage of this later, and we will link to that.

Please look at the 2009 Proxy from the USEA for more info on the topics of the meeting.

The motion to change the bylaws was approved by a majority.  I believe this means that there is a new President Emeritus position, which cannot vote, but will serve in an advisory capacity for 1 year after leaving office as president if specifically approved by the board.  I didn't count the votes, but maybe it looked like 70% voted for the issue, and many didn't vote.  Meeting adjourned.

2:00 PM-Breeding and Preparing the 4* Horse: Bruce Davidson, Buck Davidson, and Denny Emerson are speaking and answering questions about breeding and developing event horses.

Bruce Davidson Main Points:

-In breeding, mares can only reproduce themselves: 60% comes from mare, 40% from stallion.

-Nutrition in soil is important to raising young horses.

-How a horse is raised has a huge impact on its potential in life.

-"Overweight, overfed, overindulged ruins [young horses]."

-Give the young horse a shed, and give them company in open space where they can gallop and condition themselves.

-The cream rises to the top, but a decent horse well ridden and well produced can have a lot of success.  

-If you want to be a 4* rider, you need to take the time to go through the process of learning how to develop a horse. "If you know where you are going, it's a very achievable goal."

-My take: what an incredible speech, no way I could do it justice, you have to hear Bruce Davidson speak in person sometime.  It's incredible.

-Need to remember that the horses we breed today will reach their peak around 2020, so we need to look ahead to where the sport will be in 10 years.  The switch away from long format had a big impact on breeding.

-Asked Buck how he turned My Boy Bobby into the best placed US horse at Rolex 2009.

Buck Davidson responds:

-Buck got the ride on Bobby after the horse struggled with a few prelims.  Bobby really struggled at his first event with Buck, and Buck doubted his potential.  Basically Bobby had a really up and down first few events with Buck.  This was last fall, and many problems were occurring at the end of courses.  Fitness seemed to be an issue.  Then Buck worked with him all winter, which included 1.5 hour trot sets approximately 4 times a week.   He won everything in the spring.  Buck keeps mentioning a 'feel' for fitness.  Buck is giving a great talk, the crowd is into it and he is very sure of himself in a good way. Buck says that so much of the pair's success now is that Bobby trusts Buck.  Funny quote: "He's not a horse that I would hang out with, he's pretty boring." 

From the Discussion: Bruce said you definitely want to breed a horse who is lighter than My Boy Bobby.  You can improve a trot 80% on a horse, you can improve the canter 20%, the natural jump in the canter and gallop is so important in our horses.  Horses at any level need to submit and go quiet, straight, and forward.  From there, experience will make the horse braver.  

3:00 PM-Planning for the 2010 WEGs: David O'Connor, John Long, Mark Phillips, Richard Jeffries, and Jane Beshear

Here are a few ideas from John Long:  This will be the first WEGs ever held outside of Europe.  The changes to the KHP will make it one of the premiere equestrian venues in the World.  The Games are dedicated to helping the state of KY.  The Games want to be technically (footing, etc.), culturally (meeting of nations, and showing Kentucky to the World), and financially perfect.  Primary revenue drivers: tickets, hospitality, trade fair and sponsorship.  The WEGs has really struggled finding sponsors in this economic climate.  They have sold 40% of tickets as of now.  Now a video about the WEGs is being shown.  The final selection trials for the WEGs are the 2010 AECs in GA.  

First Lady of the Commonwealth of Kentucky Jane Beshear is now speaking.  Governor Beshear was unable to make the flight because the Dulles Airport would not let the plane land due to weather.  Thanks to the KHP, Kentucky is known as one of the premier sport horse places on Earth.  The WEGs will make Lexington the premier sport horse location.  First Lady calls it a 'once in a lifetime' opportunity.  "This is not just a Lexington event, it is a United States event."  The KHP is the only venue on Earth where all 8 equestrian sports can take place completely on one facility's property (with the exception of a few loops of the endurance event).  The WEGs are putting a really big priority on making the games more green.

Factoid from David: 690 Horses will be shipped by air to the US for the WEGs.  This makes it the largest horse air-lift in history.  

Richard Jeffries: giving a preview of the show jumps for the show jumping competition .  He was not specific about which of these jumps would be used for eventing.  The show jumping day 1 jumps are going to have major Kentucky themes.  The themed jumps that Jeffries explained would be present: an Alltech theme, a Kentucky black 3-board fence design.  He also mentioned tobacco and bourbon themed jumps, which caused some legal issues with the FEI and European television.  Therefore, the tobacco jump will be called 'vegetation' and the bourbon jumps will be called 'barrels.'  A barnyard themed jump.  A Rolex jump using the state flower, Golden Rod, which is yellow and green.  Riverboat themed jump.  Show jumping day 2 will have Horse Racing themed jumps.  The Keenland gate theme, the quarter pole, starting gates, the Seabiscuit filming, Churchill Downs, Calumet Farm (the only Kentucky farm to breed 2 Triple Crown winners), Gainesway farm, are all themes for jumps on day 2.  Day 3 is about iconic images of Kentucky with themes including Louisville Slugger, bluegrass music, Abe Lincoln, Muhammad Ali, and Ft. Knox, 

-Btw, the price of me doing this writing today is that I didn't get to watch UK beat UNC by 2 points.  If you know me, you know that means a lot.  Go Cats.  The snow is continuing to fall and there are a few inches on the ground.

That's all from the Saturday live thread, thanks for reading.  More on the Hall of Fame later.

9:30 AM-University of Kentucky Safety Device Study: A talk about research performed by UK about different jump safety technology devices.

Frangible Pins: As everyone knows, frangible pins are metal pins that support the XC jump and are brittle enough to break when a horse hits the jump hard enough, thus reducing the force of impact.  Earlier this year, scientists put force measurement devices on a jump in England to help them understand what forces are involved when a horse hits a jump.  Studies with jumps that use frangible pins show that no matter how intense the impact, the force of the horse hitting the jump is reduced to the threshold force breaking point of the frangible pin.  A new hinged gate design was discussed where a vertical gate is used that can break down using frangible pins, with one frangible pin on the backside and the gate portion supported by hinges.

Foam jumps: Researchers are also looking into foam that breaks under similar forces as the breaking point determined best for frangible pins.

Frangible key: Similar to a frangible pin, in that it releases with a certain amount of force, but it also incorporates a small flag that flips up when a horse hits the jump and compromises the integrity of the jump but does not hit it hard enough to break the key.

Plans for research going forward: more analysis of horse motion, focus on practical solutions, device demonstrations for eventers and general public, continuing partnering with British Eventing officials.

10:00 AM-XC Speed Study by John Staples and Reed Ayers, Ph.D.: Wanted to look at why and how people went certain speeds around the XC, and how actual speeds often do not match set speed of level.

Findings: variances (changes in) speed are not as dramatic in long format courses as short format courses.  The study compared a course that hosted both a short and long format at one competition.  Researchers are not sure why this is.  Speed of the horse effects the shape of a jump.  Courses that had more separation between jumps had lower variances of speed.  Different horses have significantly different variations of speeds throughout a course, but the changes in speed are located in similar points (skinnies, water jumps).  

One problem with wheeling a course into set minutes is that riders ride their watches, not the course.  We need to remember that each minute segment is different and requires a different ride.  Future focus needs to be on relating variability of speed to safety.  Significant speed variance wears horses out much more than consistent speeds, and so do changes in direction.  

10:30 AM: USEA Cardiorespiratory Research Team-Catherine Kohn & Mark Hart.  NOT HAPPY WARNING.  Fatalities among US horses at eventing competitions 1996-2008: 51 horse fatalities.  Mean age of horse that died: 13.7, range 8-26 years.  38 died on XC, 5 at the end.  The fatality frequency peaked in 2006, but the trend has increased over time from '96 to '08.

Requiring necropsy is an important step to contributing to our body of knowledge.  Many horse owners of horses that dies do not want to allow necropsy.

One big question in the instance of cardiovascular problems: is there some underlying issue with the horse's heart that is not apparent under normal pre-competition examinations?  They studied 2* and 3* horses at Plantation Field, where they took echocardiograms before and after XC, ultrasounded lungs, took EKG before and after XC, and continuous EKG on XC.  Article from Study.  At FHI, they just collected EKG data on 2* and 3* horses.  They do not have any results yet because they are having trouble extracting data from the medical recording machines.  The researchers did not find any dramatic heart arrhythmias of horses going into competition.  They didn't see any dramatic structural differences in horse organs before XC, so there does not appear to be any huge unseen abnormalities in horses before XC.

What next: Study heart enzyme increase when heart is inflamed, look at rest and after XC.  Determine how many 3DE horses experience pulmonary hemorrhage.  A mass voluntary study is planned where researchers perform an endoscopy before the event and after the event.  An important point is that this work has just begun.  We can't study these things without many wonderful people, horses, and events.  Ideally, we want to find something we can see in a horse somehow that tells us that a particular horse is especially at risk for these conditions.

The USEA endowment trust is going to match any donations toward this ongoing study made at the convention this weekend.  I get the sense from these talks that we are finally using the full power of statistics and science to address these issues, and there is a great sense of hope in the room.  Many people stood up after the talk and pledged donations, and it was a surprisingly emotional experience.

A high-ranking executive with the USEF said that "implementation of the progressive list has been delayed a year" during the public USEF High Performance Eligible Athletes Eventing Committee meeting at the USEA convention in Reston, VA.  According to the USEF executive, they had just heard from the FEI about the issue and a press release is coming soon from the FEI.  When asked if the information is public, a member of committee said "it is now."  

On December 1st, the FEI delayed implementation of the new prohibited substances list until April 2010 amidst widespread public outrage at allowing horses to compete on bute and other NSAID's.  This latest delay means that the 2010 World Equestrian Games will be conducted under the pre-Copenhagen zero-tolerance list.  

Media members from the Chronicle, USEA, and Eventing Nation were sitting in on the the meeting along with several other members of the public, and I think we were all surprised to hear the news.  This news is corroborated by statements made by Mark Phillips on Thursday, when he said "The progressive list will probably be postponed again until January of 2011."  We are not reporting that the FEI is 100 percent going to delay the progressive list, which we will when we see the FEI press release, but only that we are 100 percent certain that we heard an extremely credible source say that it was going to be delayed.

Thursday Night Update: The Chronicle's Friday recap is entitled "Rumors Confirmed..." so we are glad to see that they are just as confident in the story as we are.  

Also, check out the USEA's excellent and extremely thorough recap from Friday, by Emily Daily, Leslie Mintz, Erica Larson, and Lisa Thomas.  A great 20 minute break from work.

Check out photos from the USEA Awards Lunch by Josh Josh Walker at EventingUSA.

**At this point in live threat, a USEF executive mentioned that the progressive list would be delayed.  Shortly thereafter all the media was asked to leave the meeting.  We are all in this together, including riders, the media, and the USEF.  At times, such as this, the USEF probably views the media as a nuisance.  But we all have the same goal to grow eventing, and I hope that everyone feels, as I do, that a strong and independent media is an important asset to our sport.**  

4:30 PM-Care of the Event Horse After Cross-Country by Max Corcoran.  Unfortunately I arrived late to this lecture because I was busy dealing with the progressive list breaking news.  Max describes herself on her own blog as "Karen O'Connor's head groom," but if you are around the O'Connor program for any period of time you will know that Max is much more to OCET than the term 'groom' implies.  I love reading Max's blog, although I wish she would write more, and I am so glad that she is starting to develop a more public presence in eventing because good horse care needs all the help it can get these days.  Here are a few notes from the final portion of Max's talk.

-For sores in the corner of the horse's mouth, Max suggested laser treatment, Preparation H, and some type of silver cream.

-Max said that she traditionally ices the front legs at horse trials for a minimum of 20 minutes after XC, and said that recent study results have suggested that icing horses for longer than 20 minutes in one period is a valid form of treatment.  

-Max uses eventing grease at any competition that involves a vet inspection following XC.

-To help reduce typical horse after XC, she recommended packing an epsom salt and betadine slushy into the sole of the hoof, with a diaper, vetwrap, and duct tape on top.

-Finally, Max noted the need to be properly prepared with the proper tools.  Spare shoes, hoof testers, a thermometer, and shoe-pulling tools are all important.

-Finally, Max pointed out that proper horse care is proactive, a daily and hourly process.

Of course, every horse is different so please consult with your veterinarian about the best possible horse care strategy for your particular horse.  Thanks for donating your time Max, everyone enjoyed it.

A few other FEI updates.  The Jurga Report has three excellent documents from the FEI posted.  Eventing Nation first linked to the Q&A about the progressive list on horsetalk.co.nz earlier this week, but the Q&A apparently originally came from the FEI and we appreciate the Jurga Report giving credit where credit is due (namely, to the FEI).  

Still Dark AM EST: Good morning Eventing Nation!  Thank you for joining us, it's always a pleasure.  I will be updating this thread at least once every two hours throughout the day as I go from meeting to meeting.  This is real-time, so please forgive the informal writing.  Time spent writing after I left the convention last night: 6 hours.  Time spent sleeping last night: 5 hours.  Knowing that most of Eventing Nation is at work and enjoying our posts throughout the day: Priceless.  This post is going to get long, please scroll down for our Trade Fair Awards and more fun from Thursday.  Convention Schedule

7:30 AM: Rule Change Open Forum-Malcom Hook, Chair of the USEF Eventing Committee is presiding over the meeting.  A quick glance around the room, and about three current 4* riders cared enough to get up and attend this meeting, probably 40 people overall.  Just a few qualifying details being discussed, such as what to call the prelim 3-day qualifier, i.e. either 'prelim three-day' or 'one-star,' etc.  The word is that the FEI will change their rules to give people an error for riding with a dresage whip in and around the dressgae ring, rather than eliminating them, and it seems like US eventing will follow suit.  My take: makes sense, I was eliminated when I was 10 for taking my crop into the dressage ring.  

Now bickering over the word 'any.'  Make that four 4* riders are here.  Debate now over the number of solid jumps in the XC warmup.  Some riders want it mandatory to have a solid fence in warmup, organizers support the concept but don't want this to be a 'must,' particularly in the instance of limited warmup space.  Someone just said "specifity."  Interesting question just raised: is an 'x' a vertical?

Now chatting about the bit check.  One issue is that the current rules do not seem to provide a consequence for not getting your bit checked.  The idea has also been brought up by whether or not a spot check (such as once every 10 riders) would allow organizers to not have to use a volunteer to only check bits.  Little resolution, there are still concerns that the bit check rule is not strong enough.  

9:00 AM-Training Solutions for Top Riders. Phillip Dutton, Allison Springer, Mike Huber, Karen O'Connor, Kim Severson, Buck Davidson, and Will Coleman are seated at a long table and responding to questions from the audience.

*Question: When do we know when to move up?

-Allison-Trainers and riders need to know that the rider and horse understand each question at a given level, such as the coffin canter, before moving on.

-Mike Huber-The move from training to prelim is much harder than novice to training, and probably the hardest move-up in eventing.  This is a 4 inch increase, and all the others are two inches.

*Question: How much priority is placed on rider fitness?

-Karen-Older riders need to focus on cross training because riding each day does not stress the body like competition xc.  Fitness is about being able to maintain a position, such as galloping or sitting trot for an extended period of time.

-Mike Huber-Need to be able to do twice the length of your competition xc comfortably before you are ready.

-Allison-Says she does a lot of Yoga, which helps her with fitness, balance, and body control.

*Question: What about moving back levels?

-Kim-Don't be afraid to move back if you meet a roadblock, and pay attention to how difficult each course is at a given level.

-Mike Huber-Consider stepping down a level at the beginning of the year for one show as a confidence booster.

-Karen- Said she rode Teddy at prelim as the last prep for the Pan Ams to build confidence.  We need to show horses what they can do, not what they can't do.

*Question: Favorite exercises at clinics?

-Will-Always immediately take stirrups away and put rider's hands in some sort of exercise, such as one hand behind the back.  This sharpens the natural riding instincts by taking away the crutches.

-Kim-Pace work for XC.  Pace it out at 350 meters per minute, 450, etc.  Most riders, even pros have no idea how fast they are going.

-Buck-Two verticals 4.5 strides apart, do 4 strides, then 5, then 6, then come back to 4 in the balance of the 6.

-Karen-Do every dressage movement for each level in the jumping position.  Should be able to do all movements in any position.

-Mike Huber-Placing rails 9-10 ft out of jump to make people and horses wait.  Need to start small, because many people have not seen placing rails.  Work on between the jumps turns and rideability.  

-Allison-First make sure that horse is in front of riders leg, which doesn't mean going faster, but that the horse responds good from the calf rather than heel or spur.

-Phillip-Main theme is that adjustability of horse is key through all three phases.  Don't ask horse to be adjustable jumping until he can do it on the flat.

*Question: What about student who takes time off and gains weight?

-Karen-Buck should answer this because he lost so much weight.

-Buck-Said he lost weight by eating right, but it all starts with a mental commitment to being more healthy.  After a follow up question about if people should be allowed to jump overweight, Buck said "how fat is this person?"  Buck said start with trot sets, then dressage, then dressage without stirrups, etc.

-Karen-Need to identify characteristics of rider.  Many overweight people have natural balance and ride very light, and many skinny people ride very heavy.  Need to identify and fill in holes of rider.  The horse is not a vehicle.

-Will-Simplest and easiest training tool to get someone in shape is to lunge while they are riding.  This allows them to focus on their seat and strength development.

*Question: Methods to teach flying changes to young horses.

-Allison: Lots of counter canter and transitions.  

-Karen: Do it early, as soon as get horses cantering under saddle, take the across diagonal and do changes.

-Mike Huber: Start asap with young horses, but not in dressage ring or dressage saddle.

*Question: What about if you live a long distance away from an instructor?

-Mike-Consider cross training at hunter or dressage shows.  Also consider traveling to a coach for a concentrated week of training.

10:00 AM-Board of Governors Meeting: A few notes~Eventing has fared much better in the bad economy that other disciplines.  Hunter disciplines are down entries by 20%, and the USEA was only down 3% for the year.  Rule changes over past few years had the effect of seriously reducing fatalities in 2009 over previous several years.

There was a very long discussion on the elimination of the paper omnibus.  The conclusion is that there is a significant minority who really wants/needs a paper omnibus, and that many of those people are opposed to paying the over $30 price.  Just over 350 people paid the price for paper omnibi in the Fall of 2009.  Most of the board seems to feel that the elimination of sending the paper omnibus to everyone, at the expense of the USEA, was a critical step to ensuring the financial security of the USEA during the worst portion of our economic downturn.  However, the board is working hard to reduce the price of the paper omnibus, such as by finding sponsors, for those members who want to pay for the paper omnibus.

11:00 AM-Equine Respiratory System Lecture by Dr. David Marlin, Presented by Flair: A smattering of points and facts from the lecture.  A horse moves 500 gallons of air at gallop.  The respiratory system brings in oxygen, releases CO2, and gets rid of heat in horses.  Horses only breathe through the nose. The right lung is larger than the left lung.  The nose is a relatively small opening for the amount of air that passes through it, and the nasal passage gets smaller down the respiratory tract-more narrow than a finger in some places to warm and humidify the incoming air.  The respiratory tract divides about 80 times into the bronchial tree in the lungs, and eventually turns into a honeycomb structure.  The blood vessels in the lung are separated from the air in the lung by a membrane less than 100th the diameter of a human hair.  When the horse is galloping, the air moves in and out of a horse faster than water from a fireman's hose, which places the respiratory at maximum output.  Horses breathe once for every stride because the locomotion moves air in and out of chest.  Limiting airflow shortens the horse's stride and vice versa.  Dr. Marlin says hyperflexion impedes airflow. 

Horse's don't breathe while jumping.  If a horse spends a second in the air, with 18 jumping efforts in a 60 second SJ round, the horse spends 1/3 time not breathing.  Imagine now the strong innate response in animals to breathe and you can see why some horses do funny things when jumping. In XC, the horse may also not breathe during sudden increases or decreases in speed.  

The amount of air a horse moves after a long training period (months) is the same as it moves before the training; you can't train the respiratory system to take in more air.

An over-tight girth limits performance.  The old thought was that it limited rib-cage from expanding in breathing.  In fact, a tight girth limits the muscles that move the forelegs back and forward.  Don't make your girth too tight, and consider supplements to the girth like breastplate.

The major reason horses breathe hard after exercise is that they are hot, not that they are out of oxygen, the oxygen levels in the blood return to normal after only a few seconds of rest.  6-7 out of 10 horses surveyed have at least minor signs of respiratory disease when scoped in a study.  Healthy horses should not cough, if your horse coughs, talk to your vet.

Low dust management is essential for performance horses.  Feeds, hay, bedding, ventilation.  Keep dust away.  Don't compromise the ventilation in the winter time, just put another blanket on the horse.  Elevated head and neck position in transporting horses is not natural (horses are used to having their heads on the ground grazing), which leads to increases of bacteria in airway by 100 million times, possibly leading to shipping fevers and infections. 

The most common exercise-induced injury is pulmonary hemorrhage-bleeding in the respiratory tract-even if we don't see the blood come out the nose.  Bleeding is not good, it can damage the lungs.  Bleeding is common at any pace above trot.  Bleeding can get worse with weeks of training, and can cause permanent damage to the lungs.  Sorry about all this negativity, I'm waiting for him to talk about a solution.  Bleeding due to exercise may be related to blood-pressure, stress on lungs by large movement, and restriction to upper airway.     Treatments (here we go) include Lasix, Nasal Dilator Strips, and possibly Omega 3.  As always, prevention is best.  Control dust in stalls, don't muck with horse in the stall, have the horse scoped if you suspect an issue, keep new horses separated from healthy horses for a few weeks to make sure they don't have an issue.

Ok, break for lunch.

From Field Jumps, they sell you industrial strength jump cups to make adjustable xc jumps.  $179 US for a set of jump cups and the brackets to fit them on the standards.

Revita Therappeutic Systems uses infrared lights to apparently heal and prevent injuries in both people and horses.  The base model can be yours for the low price of $1,200 US. 

Plantation Field gave out free t-shirts, which obviously disappeared in about 4 minutes.  For those of you who came over the weekend, there was a jar of free fortune cookies, probably from the Carter administration, and plenty of free candy that only cost five minutes of listening to why some company's product was awesome.  Savvy trade-farers went a step further and timed the candy snatch for when the sales rep was away from the booth, and thus acquired the candy guilt-free at the low price of just also picking up a brochure.

Redmond Rock is a company that distributes natural salt blocks from Utah.  Watch out though, the salesman tried to give you a giant salt block rock to take home.  So, if you brought a wheelbarrow or large wagon with you to the convention, you were golden.  And of course, there was *that person* who absolutely couldn't pass up on free stuff and drug a rock around the convention for half a day.

Trizone All-Sport Boots.   The boots are extremely light, weighing in at just 5 ounces.  They have hundreds of pores to help keep your horse's legs cool, and the company says they are sturdy enough to protect the horse on XC.  Yours for $77 US.

Breyer ornaments from Bit of Britain.  An excellent Christmas gift at $17.95 US.

I am told that the scrubby bath cloth is an excellent stocking-stuffer at just $5 US.  Also from Bit of Britain.

...Actually, this is just a demo at the Plastic Source booth, but we'll probably get this technical some day.

The most important point is that we are dealing with two very different issues:

1) Should horses be given any drugs immediately prior to or during competition, particularly the three just allowed by the FEI?  My feeling, and I think the feeling of most people, is that, if at all possible, we want to help the horses as much as possible without being 'performance enhancing.'  People I have talked to who are much more educated about medications than myself, on average, support riders and vets having more tools to treat horses at their disposal.  Banamine is one that keeps coming up as a useful tool that is currently banned that could be used to help horses recover from a colic during a competition.  It might make for better reading if I came out with a firm stance on this first issue, but I just don't consider myself educated enough to speak strongly on how much medication should be allowed at competitions.  As long as we are not jeopardizing the safety of horses by masking unsoundness, I think making them feel better is good.  

But, I have very strong feelings about the second issue, and this issue is why I keep giving the FEI a bit of a hard time, posting photos of Mark McGuire and whatnot.

2) Did the FEI completely misjudge the equestrian community, totally screw up their clean sport initiative efforts, and probably violate their own laws?  Absolutely.  We all want the FEI to succeed, but they have completely screwed this up.  The first signs of problems occurred when the FEI general assembly rejected the consolidation of FEI leadership in what everyone thought would just be a rubber-stamp vote.  Then, the FEI presented the progressive list to delates just days before the vote.  This point is very important because we did a little research and the official FEI Statutes, the laws that govern the FEI, state: 

The Horse and Hound reported that the progressive list may have been emailed to delegates on November 13th, the Chronicle reported that not all the delegates received the email, and absolutely no reports, from any news organizations that I have seen (and I look at a lot) or the FEI have reported that the progressive list was sent out to the National Federations prior to November 13th.  

Damian McDonald, the chief executive of Horse Sport Ireland said:

These issues are only compounded by the many reports that the FEI changed the names and content of the lists leading up to the vote, the refusal to allow a revote, the long silence by the FEI after the vote, etc.  If you support giving medication to horses for competitions, great.  But no one can convince me that the FEI leadership has been a good steward of equestrian sport over the last few weeks.  Go eventing sober.

Check out Kat's Thursday report at the Chronicle, and this from the USEA.  

1) Mark Phillips had some very interesting things to say regarding the FEI progressive list issue at the USEF Active Athletes Forum.  To be clear, this was a meeting fully open to the public.  Mark Phillips said:

"The new drug rules are far from a done deal."

"The new levels set are performance enhancing."

"They [FEI] haven't exactly thought through testing procedures."

"The progressive list will probably be postponed again until January of 2011."

The sense that I got is that he thought many people wanted to have the ability to reasonably treat their horses without reaching a performance enhancing level, but the new rules were hastily put together and did not completely accomplish this goal.  He emphasized the turmoil going on in Europe, and seemed convinced that the FEI needed and would get more time to figure out the new regulations.  An interesting aside was that he mentioned that bute alone is not very performance enhancing, but you get the real boost in performance when you mix it with other drugs (legal, illegal, testable, or untestable).  

2)  At the USEA Professional Horseman's Council Meeting, several riders made an interesting point that at European novice and below (US prelim and below) level competitions, the galloping fences are harder (have more ditches, scary design, etc.), while the combinations are less technical than at the equivalent US levels.  Their point was that this design style encourages European riders to use forward aids more to the jumps, as the horses hold themselves from the spooky European galloping fences, whereas US riders tend to use their hands to slow down more.  There were also requests to reduce the number of obstacles and space them better to allow the horses to develop a rhythm on course.  Of course, there is always a tradeoff between making the cross-country easier/simpler and maintaining it as an important determiner of competition results.

3) People here love eventing and work really hard to help our sport to get better.  There are a lot of big egos here, and most of those egos have a history with each other.  I felt like everyone was quick to put their differences and pasts aside and work toward making the sport better.  I don't know if it's bad that I was so surprised by this, but I hope I see more of the same throughout the weekend.

4) The issue of professionals riding in amateur divisions is getting some attention from upset riders at the convention.  The Chronicle has been covering the story for a week or so, and we should have been linking to it sooner, so my apologies everyone.  The Chronicle wrote this piece about pros pretending to be amateurs.  The USEF, not the USEA, governs amateur status with this rule.  The short version is that you are an amateur if and only if you never ever accept any money relating to horses.  The trouble is that firmly proving that someone is not an amateur is hard because the USEF does not have access to financial records.  People are upset because there are some professional eventers, whether by ignorance or intention, have been competing as amateurs.  Once this story comes out more, I think most of the violators will shape up to avoid getting publicly called out, which would be a PR nightmare.  If you suspect someone of violating the rule, this Chronicle guide lets you know what you can do.  The Professional Horseman's Council is rightfully concerned about the issue, as it reflects poorly on law abiding professionals, and they are working on a means of notifying offenders that they are violating the rule.  

This is a completely off topic, but why does the Professional Horseman's Council need to be called the Horseman's Council, rather than the Professional Horseperson's Council?  I tend to not worry about stuff like this, but the later just seems to better reflect the nature of the Council.

5) Mike Hart, who owns Amy's horses has started the Event Owners Task Force at the USEF.  The Task Force has made a website (not yet released to the public) that seeks to give riders an opportunity to find owners by making a facebook-style profile for them and their horse that prospective owners can look at.  Mike talked about the Task Force on ER Episode 24.  I love the idea of trying to unite riders and owners, but several riders made the point at the USEF Active Athletes Forum that potential abuse of the system would lead to some very negative PR for the USEF.  As always, it only takes one abuser to ruin everything for the rest of us.

The convention schedule.  My plan is to hang out with friends and go to events that interest me, but if you have any special requests for coverage, shoot me an email and I will see what I can do.  After Fair Hill, our last on-scene reporting weekend, I will just be happy to be typing under a roof and sleeping indoors.  Congratulations to David for something that we will cover this weekend that is well past due.  

As always, Eventing Nation will be trying to balance providing the best and most entertaining coverage with protecting our sources and building relationships within the eventing community.  We would be honored if you visit Eventing Nation throughout the convention.  Go eventing...in the rain.