Training thoroughbred
horses
Paul R Earl
Facultad de Ciencias Biológicas
Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León
San Nicolás, NL 66450, Mexico
What is wanted ?
"There's a lot of heat in this horse's legs, Mr
Fitz." "They all have to go the same way, son."
What this means is that thousands of horses
have been sacrificed to get one champion like
Eclipse, Man o' War, Gallant Fox, Whirlaway,
Citation, Native Dancer or Secretariat.
Millionaires can pay the price of getting a real
champion.
The small man might have nothing but trouble
training horses in this hazardous world.
What is wanted is a stake winner that can
outdistance (eclipse) his rivals. The horses
mentioned all trained themselves! They were SO
SUPERIOR to their competitors that they eclipsed
them without injury. They all had emerged from
their 2-year old racing debute still in one piece.
The cost of a champion is trivial to its
multimillionaire owner. Next the retired champion
makes millions at stud.
The real target for training is the early 2-year-old
that is developing as an athlete. The older horses
are less flexible and require less attention. They
need to be kept both fit and sound. Which races they
are entered in profitably depends most on the
trainer finding the "right" race in the condition book.
Example: "For mares & fillies 3 years old and up . . ."
A very small number of sound horses survive
training designed for selecting stake winners.
Secretariat eclipsed his field by 31 lengths in the
1973 Belmont Stakes. This means that speed and
distance could not injure him since he had such
powerful reserves. It also means that training
methods A, B & C all work! He only lost races when
he was pulled.
Regardless, you can train horses as individuals and
purposefully avoid injuries. Will knowing the heart
rate (HR) per speed per distance help you ? Yes!
The yearly cost of lameness in the US ranges to $1
billion.
Something" is wrong !
Heart rate (40-260 HR) monitoring, and the
use of a high speed threadmill are
examples of new technical additions to
horse racing. They are complementary
rather than essential. The treadmill cannot
take high speed sprints.
Any horse working 3/8ths of a mile wide
open might predict its next race. Now the
distance by 200 HR (the V200 test) can be
found as additionally informative, using a
sensor-transmittor belt around the horse in
front of the saddle.
The components of a huge
worldwide industry
The sport of kings, movie stars and crooks
consists of investment money, state taxes
and the track's take of perhaps 12 % per
race, losses by bucked shins, bowed tendons,
sprained fetlocks and other lamenesses like
navicular disease, winnings at the races,
insurance payments, great auctions and
fabulous stud fees, aside from labor including
the trainers, jockeys, grooms and vets,
maintenance cost, feed and transportation.
Insurance premiums are 2-7 % annualy. The
cost of administration, taxes and sales round
out the picture.
The ONLY cure for real lameness is rest--3
months or more on the farm. It takes 90
days to leg up a horse. How the 2-year-old
is made fit to race, and how his bones are
modeled for speed is the major
proposition. Finally, the cause of lameness
is overtraining by the horse trainer.
Obviously, the 2 other main components
are the private farm and the private track
as the supplier of 2-year-olds. However,
many owners do not have their own farms
and are not members of the horses set or
the sniffing set. Many of them need a
patron.
Another answer of many questions is racing too
young as 2-year-olds. Everybody knows this.
Holding them till 3 is terribly expensive !
Another expense is bucked shins. The next
complaint is bowed tendons also from too fast
too young and can involve sprained fetlocks.
Regardless, if 2-year-olds are not exercised
ENOUGH!, they will develop less muscle and
less combative stiff bone. The collision between
the muscle and the bone system is rather
obvious. The gains in muscle strength are not
matched by gains in bone when speed and
distance are increasing.
IS THERE TOO LITTLE OR TOO MUCH TRAINING
SPEED?
IS IT BETTER TO SHORTEN THE
DISTANCE THAN LOWER THE SPEED? YES.
Sprints are OK
Bones generate electric potentials in response
to mechanical stress. Wolff's law affirms that
bone adapts its structures to meet stress in
the best possible way.
High speed is this stimulus.
In 1892, Julius Wolff suggested this law that
states that bone tissue can adapt optimally to
the mechanical load to which it is exposed.
This is often called remodeling. The optimum
has mimum mass/maximum stiffness.
Sprints are OK! Let the horse have his head
once in a while. Lighten up by shortening the
distance not always the speed.
Anatomical points
Is a horse equal to his forelegs ? It is
tempting to say Yes ! He is standing on
his middle fingers. Two other fingers of
the most distant paleontologic past are
the 2 splint bones on the cannon bone.
What do you need to know ? See the
drawing of the cannon bone (Metacarpal
III) & hoof. Does the extensor tendon
move right over the cannon bone?
Most racetrackers do not know ANY
anatomy. Then, communication with the
veterinarian is most problematic.
Claiming
Obviously, the combination of a hard
dirt track surface, lameness, extreme
youth and high speed breaks down
many horses. All the lame horses of
millionaires go to the claimers
($1,000-100,000 or more) just as
horses move from Belmont Park, NY
to some track few people ever heard
of. Most horses spend their lives in
the claimers. Geldings have no place
to go.
Did the small trainer ever improve his claimer
just by letting up on it ? YES ! Everybody
knows this! Much of the time, Seabiscuit was
too sore to run well and never had a painkiller.
Try to understand reluctance to run. Perhaps
you don't !
Anyone who puts his horse to claim feels the
price is a profit over that horse's condition.
The groom gets back to the barn with an empty
halter, and a problem has been solved. Next
time out, that horse may be trying very hard
for the bew owner on legal painkilling bute
(phenylbutazone). These castoffs are the
necessary support for the racing industry.
Is this castoff going to breakdown or - When ?
Jockeys
Except for veterinarians, the last major
component is the jockey. The trainer says,
"Why would I ride you back? You pulled
that horse last week." "Yes, I know I did.
But let me ride him back. I think I can win!"
The last resort for a jockey is to jump off
the horse.
Say a horse is pulled several times and then
gets into a lower claimer. The jockey's
friends claim it. You know the rest !
The best view of hankypanky in a race
shows when the horses fan out after the
quarter pole. Binoculars are helpful. Note
also that any jockey should give racing
room, don't you think ?
Vets
Getting along with folkloric trainers is # 1.
Practice from influenza on is not of interest
here. High interest is focused on the
experimental method that contains controls.
In racing, many conditions always change.
What is a baseline? Of course, horses can act
as their own controls, but intuition is the
winner.
Finding out what applies best via ANOVA
(analysis of variance) or other statistics is
only some 20 years old for most horse
problems. What variables (parameters) have
the lowest variance? Sports medicine is quite
behind what its assets are. Research is in its
infancy.
A guide for the V200 test
A trot (jog) at about 250 m/min or 48
s/f produces a HR of about 90 bpm
A canter at about 400 m/min or 30 s per
furlong produces a pulse of about 125
bpm
A canter at 460 m/min or 26 s per
furlong produces a HR of 135 bpm
A slow gallop at about 550 m/min or 22
s/f produces a HR of approximately 155
bpm, and
A slow to fast gallop at about 660 m/min
or 18 s/f gives a HR of 180 bpm
What does it mean--to rub a horse ?
"Do you know how to rub a horse?" "Yes, sir."
"Go on in the barn and tell Sweeney I told you
to tell him to give you the pony to take care
of."
To massage a horse's forelegs is to rub a
horse. Probably with linament like Bigeloil.
It is a counterirritant having thymol, menthol,
methyl salicylate, capsicum, salicylic acid 0.65
%, oils of juniper and pine, and alcohol 75 %.
Absorbine and others are also used, of course.
Massage in some form dominates the
racetrack.
Hosing with tap water through to painkillers fit
in here. The cause of pain is overtraining.
Hosing is an important part of the folklore.
Metabolism and HR tests
How much oxygen passes through the
muscles to gain a given racing distance
at a certain speed?
We can figure this out using simple
Newtonian mechanics.
What do we have? We have primarily:
-Heart rate (HR, pulse)
-Percent of saturation of arterial blood
with oxygen
-Blood pressure
The cardiovascular vs
the skeletal system
We are talking about 2 very different systems:
1) the cardiovascular (CV) system and 2) the
bones and ligaments of the forelegs. Gain by
exercise in the CV system can be more than lost
in the legs by injuries. The guide is speed, not
distance. However, a few works will not gain
much muscle.
A few expert jockeys can time a work such as a
mile in 2 min. What is V200? It is a distance
likely in meters when the pulse = HR is
200/min.
What are the common track
measurements?
The US racetrack is about the last
fortress in the world for the English
system of measurement. A furlong is
1/8th of a mile. It is still the basic
unit in the states. Then horses run
11, 12, 13 or more s/f.
1 Centimeter = 0.3937 inches
1 Centimeter = 0.032808 ft
1 Furlong = 660 ft
1 Furlong = 0.125 mile
1 Furlong = 0 201.168 meters
1 Furlong = 220 yards
1 Foot = 0.3048006 meter
1 Foot = 12 inches
1 Foot = 1/3 yard
1 Foot = 30.48 centimeters
1 Inch = 2.54 centimeters
1Kilometer = 0 3280.83 ft
1 Km = 0.6214 mile
1 Km = 1093.61 yards
1 Km = 4.9710 furlongs
1 Km = 0.2071 leagues
1 Km = 1000 meters
1 Meter = 3.280833 feet
1 M = 39.37 inches
1 M = 1.0936 yards
1 M = 100 centimeters
1 M = 0.001 kilometers
1 M sq = 10.764 sq ft
1 Mile = 5,280 ft
1 Mile = 8 furlongs
1 Mile = 1.60935 km
1 Mile = 1760 yards
1 Mile = 1/3 leagues
1Mil=1609.344meters
1Mile=1.6093km
1Yard=36inches
1 Yd = 3 feet
1 Yd = 0.9144 meters
AVOID INJURIES
BUCKED SHINS: Dorsal metacarpal disease
Bucked shins are a very common cause of
forelimb lameness in young horses. Most young
racehorses develop shin soreness. If not
properly treated, bucked shins may lead to
stress fractures. The cause of bucked shins is
‘too much work too fast’ or in other words, THE
HORSE TRAINER is the cause.
Usually, the bone is quickly remodeling by the
stresses of training. Remodeling has its
attractions, but the bone can weaken via
microfractures. Let up on the horse.
Treatment is palliative, having of cold therapy
(hosing with tap water usually) and using the
painkiller phenylbutazone--bute. Reduce the
work load. Pain killers are obviously beneficial.
Example: phenylbutazone lets sore horses race.
In some US states any medication may be
illegal since it allows MORE damage to the
horse. Stress fractures are repaired by either
surgically drilling holes around the fracture that
act as conduits that supply healing factors
(osteostixis) or by inserting a screw across the
fracture plane. Healing requires 90-120 days.
Almost everything that is tried for bucked shins
through to antique pinfiring attempts to
increase the circulation, and also often involves
reducing pain.
Tendonitis and ligament injuries
If a tendon is lacerated, the healing tendon
will be strong enough to bear weight at a
walk in 6-8 weeks. Bowed tendons or
suspensory ligament injuries require 6-12
months to heal. Treatment is palliative
including reducing pain with
phenylbutazone. Sprained fetlocks usually
involve the ligaments.
Complete recovery of tendonitis is most
unlikely and half of these will bow again.
Speed may eventually destroy the profitable
bowed horse running in the claimers.
Osteochondrosis (OCD)
Signs include swollen joints, lameness and
progressively developing upright conformation.
Diagnosis is confirmed with radiography of the
affected joints. The most common areas
affected are: hock, stifle, fetlocks, shoulder,
carpus, cervical vertebrae, elbow and pastern.
Rapid growth of the foal coupled with
imbalances in the diet are the primary set of
causative factors. Promoting fast growth by
feeding high levels of energy seems related to
OCD. Most forms of OCD are responsive to
surgical treatment in young horses.
What are some treatments for pain
in horses?
Drug classes are followed by examples of specific
drug names in parentheses.
Acute pain treatments
Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs or
NSAIDs (Bute = phenylbutazone, Banamine,
Ketofen)
Steroids (dexamethasone, prednisilone)
Local anesthetics (lidocaine, bupivicaine)
Opiates and their derivatives (morphine,
Torbugesic, fentanyl)
Alpha-2 agonists (Rompun, detomidine)
Dissociatives (ketamine)
Shockwave therapy
Injectable joint protectants (Legend, Adequan)
TRAINING PROGRAMS
The new 2-year-old is exposed to a gradually
increasing excercise program. Are its bones
adapting to the stresses it will live under ?
Is the treadmill necessary ? Certainly not. It is
still an experimental tool.
Is the velocity at 200 HB test necessary, say
once a month ? No, but it is extremely helpful
with 2 & 3 year olds.
Can the excercise boy breeze a given distance
at 200 HB rather than control a work at a given
number of seconds? How does HB convert to
meters/s or s/furlong ? By f, seconds are 10,
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 s. The last is just
a fast gallow. For a mile, this is 2: 24 min which
is 144 s.
There are many approaches to the same end
result. Programs are quite different in Japan,
Australia, England and the USA. Here the
suggestions on training are just suggestions
since different approaches can apparently
produce an equivalent result!
A training program could have a 2-mile (3.2
km) gallop at 18 f/s = 11.2 m/s daily. The
horse might breeze at 14.4 f/s once every 710 days increasing the distance to 6 f = 1.2
km. Should you start with a 1 mile gallop ?
Note that horses should be jogged 3-5
minutes to warm up before breezes, and
especially before races.
A program is now suggested.
The main point is that the work
load increases as the horse ages to
race perhaps in May.
New horses are broken to ride in the fall
and can gallop a mile at 18–20 s/f by the
end of December. The training program is
6 days a week with Sundays off. V200 HB
tests can be made before and after any
training routine. Teaching horses to use
the gates starts early. As simple as A, B, C.
What can you learn from this lecture ?
- Understanding the cause of injuries will
help you prevent them
- Training programs must fit each horse*
- Proper shoeing and footing are critical
- Bone can remodel in response to the
stress of a given training program. SPEED
must be accomodated!
- Excercise as correct, too much, too little or
the wrong kind finalizes as some amount of
SPEED. SPEED is the name of the game
- While positive training is evinced as a gain
by muscle increases like heart size, bone
misfunctions may register losses as in
soreness or worse.