2010 WEG Test Ride, Brothers Oregon

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WEG test ride, June 26th, Brothers Oregon…
June 27 Posted by Chris Martin

19 horse and rider teams gathered at a wide spot in the road in Brothers Oregon on the 25th of June. Inspection of horses was at 2PM followed by a general rider/crew meeting at 5PM. Riders were placed into 4 groups of 4 or 5 riders. The trail consisted of a 80 mile coarse in 5 loops of mostly flat desert trails

Start of the ride was to be at 8am about 2.5 miles from ridecamp out to another wide spot in the road…..not kidding. Crew needed to be in place prior to the riders leaving. Groups left at 20 minute intervals.

MONK and Lindsay were in group one which consisted of 5 riders. Jeremy and Heather Reynolds, on Smitty and Sam, riders Carolyn Giles, and Cheryl Dell rounded out the team. They were first on the coarse at 8am.

Each horse was to have one (1) groom which was allowed to enter the pulse box along with the rider and the horse. Our team groom was Brad Green who is a small animal vet in Oregon and a FEI rider.....

Concept was that riders would cross a magical line from the in timer at which time the crew could access the horse and rider. Our team would remove saddle and put on HR monitor strap. Brad had the HR watch and monitored the HR and MONK and crew progress down the 200' long row of buckets of water used to cool the horses filled with dozens of people who either poured water or handed buckets to people who pored water. Brad calls when and where for people to poor water... which in MONK's case was all over, all the time... When you get to the end of the line you stop the water and then scrap it off and check Heart Rate... If your horse is down to 64 you then call to the timer that you are down and enter the pulse box... Our team's horses recovered within a few seconds of each other... somewhere in the 3 min range.... So from the time you remove the saddle, get a drink of water, walk the 200 feet your horse is down to 64... These riders come in at full speed, no walking and mostly at the cantor...

All crewing must stop when in the pulse box. Horse is then presented to the team of vets who check everything, including temperature. Trot out and CRI are recorded.

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