Playing the odds with cellulitis

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Karen completing her jog with Mandiba
Two big things changed for the US team on Wednesday morning–first, Kim and “Paddy” withdrew, and second, Karen and Mandiba were added to the team competition.   Everything happened really quickly so let’s take each development separately and try to lend some clarity to the situation.
Kim and Paddy–what we know:
1) A few days ago Paddy started suffering from a cellulitis infection in a front leg.
2) The infection was treated with antibiotics and started to significantly improve.
3) Kim and Paddy were entered over the weekend by the USEF.
4) Early on Tuesday, the cellulitis inexplicably worsened.
5) By then, it was well past the deadline for making changes to the definite entries.

This info comes from the USEF press release, this audio interview with CMP kindly linked to by Monty White in the comment section, and sources I spoke with close to the US team.

The first and most important reaction to all of this is that I feel absolutely horrible for Kim and Paddy.  Nobody has worked harder than Kim this year.  The horrible, twisted, awful nature of our sport is that doing everything within your power to succeed is not nearly enough to be successful or even get a chance to be successful on any given weekend.  We have all missed a horse trials due to an abscess or a season due to injury, but I can’t even imagine how hard it must be to be literally 48 hours from competing at the WEGs and having that opportunity taken away by something completely out of your control.   The good news for Kim is that she has already had the chance to prove herself and win a WEG gold medal, an Olympic individual silver medal, and many other outstanding international achievements.  The other good news is that Paddy should be healthy again soon, but it is impossible not to be heartbroken today.
The next reaction is be curious about how the team ended up not using an alternate.  The simple answer is that the team used all of the information available from the vets, determined that the odds of Paddy being ready for the jog on Wednesday seemed quite high, and unfortunately things didn’t go the right way.  Frankly, everyone seems pretty shocked that Paddy got worse on Tuesday.  A vet I spoke with said that the fact that Paddy got significantly worse on Tuesday was a big medical anomaly.  The antibiotics were working prior to Tuesday, the cellulitis was under control, and then suddenly the antibiotics stopped working and Paddy got worse.  The point is that it sounds like everyone thought Paddy would be fine, and we shouldn’t look back on the fact that there was an improbable and unexpected development and immediately say that it was wrong to keep Kim on the team.  In life, we have to play the odds to the best of our ability, and, no matter how likely we are to be right, there is still a chance that things will go wrong, especially with horses.  
Karen and Mandiba: When Paddy was withdrawn, there were only two options to replace him for the team competition: Mandiba and Comet.  Most of the team decisions from all countries have been made based on predicted probability of getting around the XC, and I don’t think Karen’s pick was any different.  Neither Mandiba nor Comet have perfect XC records, but Karen gets the experience advantage, having represented the US 11 times at international championships and the feeling this year is that Mandiba has matured a lot, despite the weird stop at the AECs.  Karen will of course handle the pressure and I expect Mandiba to step up to the challenge.  Go eventing.
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