Re: ti's summary

["Celia Krall" <celiak@pcrs.net>]

I really like this.  Boils it all down, doesn't it?


As soon as you put a halter on a horse, you're playing God. To the extent 
that you don't know what God knows, you will make errors that will damage 
your horse--we all do. Fitness is protection, as is knowledge. If there is 
anything immoral going on in endurance racing, then, it will take the form
of 
stubborn ignorance and plain laziness.  Eliminate those characteristics
from 
your own approach and you can then begin pontificating and opinionating on 
reasonably solid moral footing. 

Of course, we're all raving idiots when it comes to knowing what God knows,

so none of us really commands the moral high ground. 

ti 



----------
> From: Tivers@aol.com
> To: cms@fluent.com; ridecamp@endurance.net
> Subject: RC:   racing and long term soundness
> Date: Wednesday, February 09, 2000 12:15 PM
> 
> In a message dated 2/9/00 9:13:06 AM Pacific Standard Time,
cms@fluent.com 
> writes:
> 
> << What I want to know
>  is, does this type of carbo-loading/speed conditioning method burn them
>  out after a while? Do you have any evidence to the contrary?>
> 
> "Burn them out" is not the right phrase. The question you're asking is
more 
> like does strenuous effort lead to excess wear and tear. the answer is,
it 
> can. But it doesn't have to. The horse can do precisely what it's been 
> prepared to do, and benefit, every time, from that exercise. Once you ask
a 
> horse to do more than it has been prepared to do, then uyou get into the 
> overuse/overtraining syndrome and accumulate damage. Flat racers are all 
> undertrained and over raced, and come up with so many injuries that the 
> trainers are afraid to condition them at all. Most flat racehorse
trainers 
> think the 2 1/2 miles of easy gallop is insanely too long.
> 
> As far as carb supplementation, the idea is not to supercdharge the
horse, 
> but rather to prevent fatigue--and the injury that often goes with it. By

> happy coincidence, when you prevent fatigue, you also get better racing 
> performance.   
> 
> > I have
>  certainly seen a lot of burned out track racehorses, who no doubt have
>  been engineered and conditioned for maximum speed over the short term.>
> 
> They haven't been conditioned at all, and they're not burned out, they're

> injured. When you start hitting miles in 1:40 or better, you're
approaching 
> "speed that kills" without adequate preparation. In fact, miles over
decent 
> terrain slower than 2:45 rate are all "money in the bank". You're
building, 
> not breaking down--just as long as you bring those miles on judiciously,
a 
> step at a time.
>  
> >Now, there may be a fair number of endurance riders who are focused
>  primarily on winning, and have plenty of money to replace their mounts>
> 
> Whoops, now you're starting to get stupid and emotional and
iirrational--hope 
> you don't continue in this vein.
> 
> 
>  >after they burn them out, but that's not me (and I'd bet its not most
of
>  the ridecamp audience, either). My time and money are hard-won, and my
>  horse is my partner.>
> 
> If he's not fit, he's your object of torture. 
> 
> > His long-term soundness and well-being are
>  paramount to me.>
> 
> If so, then you'll be really interested in the science of exercise 
> physiology--the only possible way to keep him fit and sound.
> 
> > I don't have another sitting on the bench in case of
>  injury. It is not a victory for me if my horse doesn't love his work.> 
> 
> Agreed, but my bet is you hae yet to ride a horse that REALLY loves his
work. 
> You'll know it when you have, and you won't be concerned at all with
losing 
> as a goal.
> 
> > How do you know that your program will work for the long-haul?>
> 
> I don't have a program yet. Still working on it. But I'm already being 
> stunned at how far in front of my thinking some ridecampers already are.
I 
> can tell you this, from a modicum of experience with athletic horses--the
fit 
> horse lasts forever. A few years back a vet from Canada wrote be about 4 
> horses he had to retire at 16--because that is the mandatory age for 
> retirement in Standardbreds. The animals had untold miles of very
strenuous 
> interval training under their belts--interval trained from day one--and
had 
> each raced more than 400 times. All were dead sound and still ready to
race. 
> He had another half dozen approaching retirement age in the same
condition. 
> 
> His horses would race on the weekend. For every race, there was another
50 
> miles of exercise at a trotting speed faster than a 3:30 mile rate and 3 
> miles of maximal speed interval training during the week preceding it.
So, 
> 1200 miles of near-maximal effort (trotting at a 2:00/mile rate), 400
miles 
> of maximal effort, and 20,000 miles at speeds faster than you've ever
trotted 
> your horse, in each career. And these were just "sprinters". 
> 
> It's called fitness. 
> 
>  >If you've
>  covered this before and I've missed it, I apologize for asking you to do
>  it again.
>  
>  Seriously, I ask this with curiosity and respect - please don't insult
>  me.
>  
>  Chelle Sherman
>  Plainfield, NH>
> 
> You didn't do too bad, except for that one sentence. It's a major error
to 
> assume that those winning races traveling faster than you are simply 
> crippling their animals. Check out what some of the people are saying
about 
> how they condition winners--these folks are deadly serious, and the last 
> thing they want to do is injure a horse that they've put ten times the
work 
> into than you've ever thought of doing. 
> 
> See the logic? You invest, then you reap the rewards--so does your horse.
You 
> think, get smarter, do smarter things, and you reap the rewards--so does
your 
> horse. If you don't put in the blood sweat and tears, and don't think
long 
> and hard about what you're doing, then you just don't have the right to 
> criticize those that do. Particularly on moral grounds. 
> 
> As soon as you put a halter on a horse, you're playing God. To the extent

> that you don't know what God knows, you will make errors that will damage

> your horse--we all do. Fitness is protection, as is knowledge. If there
is 
> anything immoral going on in endurance racing, then, it will take the
form of 
> stubborn ignorance and plain laziness.  Eliminate those characteristics
from 
> your own approach and you can then begin pontificating and opinionating
on 
> reasonably solid moral footing. 
> 
> Of course, we're all raving idiots when it comes to knowing what God
knows, 
> so none of us really commands the moral high ground. 
> 
> ti 
> 
> 
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