You should use a whip to encourage forward momentum during training at home. You can ride with a whip under AERC rules, and I believe they are ok at vet checks, but you might get a poor score on your vet card for impulsion, gait, and attitude, if the horse needs a whip to move out. I have never used a whip of any kind at a ride, so I’m not that educated on the issues surrounding whip use. Vets coach riders on what they want to see and how they want the horse handled, so I would imagine the vet has the right to tell you to drop the whip unless maybe you’re handling a stallion.
so I would imagine the vet has the right to tell you to drop the whip unless maybe you’re handling a stallion
No, they don’t have that right. It isn’t their realm of responsibility to determine how the rider may ask the horse to trot out, how to handle the horse, or anything along those lines as long as there is no extreme abuse or the horse isn’t hazed the entire trip up and back. The trot out is only for the vet to verify that the horse is sound to continue, and to set the stage for the CRI. How you handle your horse is your own responsibility. If your horse needs a whack, or two or three, on the ass to move, then do it, or have someone else do it. Many times I’ve even seen the vets waving their arms and clucking to get a lazy horse moving.
If, however, a person has to systematically beat - and I mean really whack with a whip non-stop - their horse repeatedly, only to have the horse refuse to move forward then the vet will talk with the rider to see if the horse will trot out with someone else at the end of the lead.
If the horse won’t trot out despite everyone’s best efforts, and without wailing and whacking at the beast the whole way, then the vet can pull the horse because of failure to determine fitness to continue. However, I have, in all my years of endurance, never seen that happen. I have, at least 4 times!!!, seen a whole crowd of people gather, waving their arms and clapping behind a lazy horse, to get it started. Once started, a horse will generally continue. I remember one horse rounding the end of the trot out, and just refusing to trot back, the poor rider dragging and pleading at the end of the lead. The vet just looked at us and shrugged and laughed. He didn’t care; he’d already seen the horse was sound on the trot away, and the metabolics, including CRI, were stellar.
So teach the horse at home to start out smartly their trot out 100 feet and return. Sure saves having to whack it with a crop at a ride.
Also poor scores (B or C range) mean little unless you are competing for a high vet score. They simply exist as a way for each following vet to determine if a metabolic or lameness problem is developing.
