 |
[RC] Metabolics of Endurance Horses - k s swigartHeidi said: On the track, given quality horses, put your money on the TB. That is his specialty, and he does it well. One of the things that scares me about selecting track horses for Arabian breeding generation after generation is that they stand to lose some of their metabolic capability for endurance. And before kat jumps all over me here, Dr. Barry Grant did a great study on this out of WSU several years ago, conditioning Arabs and TBs for 50-milers, and riding them together at rides. He took muscle biopsies during and after the 50s and did glycogen stains and I think several other parameters as well. There IS a difference--a HUGE difference. I have never denied that there is a difference (even a HUGE difference) between the metabolic capabilities of a TB and an Arabian. After all, you don't have to have even a "quality" thoroughbred to outrun an Arabian at the "middle distances" used in flat track racing. And this isn't just because thoroughbreds are taller (even a short thoroughbred will be able to outrun a tall arabian), it is because metabolically they are different. What I deny is that a horse that has been bred and selected as, say, a cow horse metabolically makes a better endurance prospect than one that has been bred and selected for ability to successfully run both aerobically and anaerobically at those middle distances. I readily agree that such horses are more mentally suited to the sport, but am unwilling to concede that metabolically this is the case. The ability to mobilize energy both for aerobic and anaerobic effort (unlike for the QH distance) along with the incredible stresses associated mechanically with such high speeds is, from a physiological standpoint, probably the best physiological test for capability as an endurance horse (if you ask me). Where the big draw back to TBs is, they really DON'T know how to take care of themselves (they will run themselves to death on adrenaline alone, and many have done so), and the thing that might make me leary of a race bred arabian would be its mentality. However, it has only been the last 20 or so years that arabians have been bred exclusively for this purpose, rather than 300-400 that thoroughbreds have. Up until recently (and even now in some countries), the race track has been only one of the performance tests that they have used as selection criteria for Arabian. Up until WWII, the Poles were breeding Arabians mostly as cavalry mounts (and that is pretty much what the Bedouins bred them for for centuries) but make no mistake, the ability to race middle distances successfully was a major criteria in the selection process of those horses (even the Bedouin horses). A few hundred years from now, race bred arabians may have had their self-preservation bred out of them, but it hasn't been going on for long enough yet to turn very many of them into horses that can't take care of themselves, and if endurance riders divert them from the racing scene now, they can have access to the physiological testing without getting too much of the "race horse mentality." And if, on the other hand, they performance test them in BOTH disciplines, they can get the best of both worlds. I'd take a successful arabian race horse turned endurance horse any day over somebody's "the most recent successful competitive horse in the pedigree was 4 generations back" horse any day. At the same time, I also would be uninterested in a pedigree littered with, close up, what is succeeding in the show ring today, because the selection criteria of the Arabian show ring is, pretty much, anything that can't be ridden :) (although the recent advent of the "sport horse" classes may change this). kat Orange County, Calif. kat Orange County, Calif. ============================================================ Arabians were bred for years primarily as a war horse and those requirements are similar to what we do today with endurance riding. ~ Homer Saferwiffle ridecamp.net information: http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/ ============================================================
|