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RE: [RC] Weight--Long - heidiBruce, don't confuse the weight of the HORSE with the weight he is
carrying. No matter who rides the horse, HIS body mass is going
to have to cool down, so HIS size is indeed an issue here. That
is unrelated to the weight that he is carrying. (And Susan found
no correlation between ability to do the job and the ratio between
rider weight and horse weight--she had horses in her study carrying
over 31% of their body weight in rider and tack. That's you,
riding a 750 lb horse--which should be able to cool quite well, given
that it has less body mass than some.) Truman's concept applies
to heavy HORSES, not to horses carrying heavy riders!
The featherweight winners of Tevis also often run much of the
trail--I know Becky Fiedler did. So what's your point there??
I was not the one who mentioned having a heavier rider condition the
horse--and I don't set all that much store by that notion. When
I've seen the performance improve in such cases, the lighter rider was
invariably a far better rider, too.
With regard to your illustration of carrying a pail of water, go back
to Kat's bridge-building exercise. When you suspend the weight out
on an appendage, it has a far different effect than if you put it on
your body in a place where you can pack it. I can't pack a 50 lb
salt block hanging on a handle in my hand more than 10 or 20 feet, and
yet I can trot from my house to the barn quite nimbly with a 50 lb
grain sack over my shoulder when I forget to park by the barn and
unload it, even given the fact that I am very unfit and not all that
tough anymore. I suspect your horse would have some real issues
with your weight if you suspended yourself in a sling off of one
side of him, instead of sitting well balanced in a saddle on his back
in a spot where he can carry weight easily.
The 1/20th figure comes from energy expenditure and oxygen uptake
experiments, if memory serves--someone correct me if I'm wrong.
You've probably got more access to the literature at the moment than I
do, since I've given up all my lit search subscriptions in my
retirement, but that figure is taught in physiology classes, and is
well backed up by good science. Nothing missing--sorry.
As for tissue stresses--certainly weight has an effect there.
Again, see Garlinghouse. She found a statistically significant
rise in lameness pulls when the TOTAL weight of horse and rider
exceeded 1200 lbs, but NO statistical increase with an increase in the
ratio of rider weight to horse weight. Intuitively one suspects
that has to happen at some point--but as I've already mentioned, she
had horses in the study where the rider weight exceeded 31% of the
horse weight, which would be the equivalent of you on a 750 lb
horse. And given your weight, you could actually ride a horse as
heavy as 965 lbs without crossing that 1200 lb line, which would put
you at less than 25% of your horse's weight. So you're a long way
from being heavy enough for your weight to be an issue in that
regard....
Heidi
Heidi--
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