July 5, 2013

Who Knew? A spongeless, way to cool

One of my e-friends from the Northeast offered some suggestions for Journey's hanging pulse.    She has campaigned a Morgan horse successfully, and is riding him still and he's in his twenties.  He has some impressive finish times (at least by my criteria) and definitely has had careful handling, and the longevity that goes with that.  So looking at her long record with him, and her very high completion rate, and his non-arabian breeding I felt she was a person who merited "listening to." 

First off Journey is really out of shape.  She is sweating, huffing, and puffing at 5 miles at the walk, and actually did a little less than that this evening in the mud.  Her pulse by the time I'd loosened her girth, kicked off my shoes and slid on rubber barn boots, was still at 78 bpm.   That is very high for a horse with half-arab breeding, and a walk around the woods for the most part.  LSEGH had the "new fangled cooling device" locked and loaded at the horse trailer when I came in.  He's SO GOOD TO ME.   It works pretty easy.  You pick it up in your left hand, grab the wand, and start spraying right where you need it.  The groove of the neck where the jugular runs, and the big veins on the inside of the legs.  The water is very cold, concentrated only where you want it, and Journey loved it as much as she hates the sponging process.  LSEGH strolled out about then, and he took over the "new fangled coolign device."  I manned the heart rate monitor.  We had a drop in pulse about every two seconds, I just sat there and watched the number drop.  Spraying her inside legs seemed to make it rise (its very cold), but concentrating on the jugular seemed to be the sweet spot.  Then she decided she like drinking out of it which was pretty funny.  

Here's how the "new fangled cooling device" is set up. 

* Unscrew the lid.

* Add a few cups of ice.  (I suppose if you have good aim, alcohol added to the water would work too)

* Fill with cold water.

* Screw the lid on snug.

* Pump to pressurize.

*Swirl that little bit of ice around.

*Pick it up in your lefty or righty.

*Grab the wand with the other-y.

*Point wand near large or bulging blood vessels.

*Spray!

*It's awesome!!!

 Yes.  A simple garden sprayer.  Of course purchased new for this purpose.  If a sponge and bucket is a like score of (5)...the "new fangled cooling device scores a (10).

2 comments:

  1. That is a GREAT idea! Thanks for sharing.

    Bill

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  2. In case anyone was wondering, we've reached pulse criteria of 60 on two trials and have not run the 1.5 gallon dry. If I were doing it at a ride I'd have a couple 5 gallon buckets filled and ready, so if you did need to refill, just immerse it until full, screw the lid back on and go.

    I'm pretty sure that much of Journey's hanging pulse, has to do with what is going on in her brain. Just for kicks I did a pre-ride pulse today, and guess what? Hanging in the high seventies and we hadn't left the trailer. She was focused on "being with" the other two horses and it spiked her pulse. Once her attention was diverted and she calmed down, it suddenly dropped to 37 bpm, which was more like it. I will allow that on a hot humid day she's going to get hot, her pulse is going to go up, but with cooling it should go down as well. The fun is sorting out herd bound behavior vs. worked too hard.

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