Re: RC: Re:overweight an issue?

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

> 1. Tevis is a hilly, relatively slow ride - South African rides are
> mainly known to be fairly fast (at least the winning speeds look quite
> fast to me compared to UK speeds).

Bingo.

> the finish. At higher speeds, the "energy equations" might look quite
> different - the heavier rider will put *much* more extra strain on the
> horse, so that, despite its good condition score, the horse now has no
> longer "enough fuel" for the added task of carrying more weight around
> the course at winning speeds.

Yes, exactly.  We plan to collect data at flat, fast rides, where the
energetics are quite different, and we expect the results to be much more in
line with what Wolfgang's study showed.


>
> 2. The SA study did not give the horses' weights.
> Heavier riders tend to ride larger horses. Susan had already found a
> significant rise in lameness incidences once the total horse+rider
> weight got larger than x pounds - maybe the South African study was
> seeing a similar effect but the researchers did not notice it as they
> were not looking at total horse+rider weights?

Excellent point.


> all  in any other studies on the subject. My one doubt with the
> condition scoring is that it might be a rather subjective measure,
> especially when going into the finer details and deciding between a
> "4.5" and a"4". So, it would be interesting if Susan's results are
> "repeatable" with someone else doing the condition scoring or whether
> there might have been a bias in Susan's study which linked certain
> characteristics of successful horses to certain values in the
> condition score.

Good point.  It *is* subjective, although pretty repeatable between people
once you get the hang of it (and I'd done alot of it, comparing results,
with other people before I went to Tevis).

Linking certain traits of successful horses....hmmmmm, I don't think so.
You look at certain anatomical landmarks, judge the prominence of those
landmarks and average a score.  You don't look at things like length of hip,
or heart girth or how tall the horse is, if that's what you mean.  You have
to be careful not to be fooled into thinking a "weinerdog" is thin, when
they're not, but that comes with a little practice at it.


>
> 4. The SA study seems to come to a conclusion of the form "x extra kg
> lead to a y km/h slower speed".
> That I find a very strange conclusion to draw as, even with their
> large sample size, speeds are controlled by so many factors that it
> seems very "brave" to relate them to one variable alone, even if they
> show a reasonable degree of correlation.

Agreed.  You make excellent points, Jana.

Susan G