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RE: [RC] Heart Rates and Fitness//RHR Vetting In - heidiWhat I actively look for and select for are horses whose RHRs don't
"couple up" with the excitement around them. And that trait seems
to be innate, not a matter of fitness. I've seen impeccably
conditioned horses who have been on the circuit for years whose pulses
will still spike at commotions or crowds--but also see relatively unfit
horses whose HRs stay nice and steady, almost no matter what goes
on around them, short of bombs going off or the entire ride camp being
sucked up in a tornado or something.
One of my favorite memories of Junior was at his very first ride--my
ex-husband had a horse conditioned and competed for three years, who
was about at the peak of his prowess, and he was determined to win the
ride. So he took off in the front of the pack, and I took off
toward the back. I got to VC1, only 9 miles out of camp, up a
single-file trail where nobody could pass. It was a
nut-house--all the horses there at once. I went off under a
tree and checked his pulse, and he was down, so I threaded my way to
the PR area through the shoving crowd (note--this was a 5-year-old
stallion who had been under saddle for a fairly short time, let alone
conditioned) and got pulsed and sent on to the vet. I didn't pay
the slightest bit of attention where anyone else was or what "place" I
was--it was a stop-and-go check, so after being passed by the vets, I
mounted up and rode out. A couple more folks caught up with me as
we dawdled up the trail, and we got to VC2 (about 21 miles out) to find
ex-hubby and another lady there. I asked him what was wrong--why
he wasn't out front as he had planned--and he replied, "What are YOU
doing here?? We're 1st and 2nd, and our horses aren't down
yet!"
Well, my little guy pulsed right down, but I stuck around until the
first two horses were down, and rode out with them. We came into
the 3rd check (at about 40-something miles--this was a 60-miler) and he
was once again right down--but I waited for then-hubby, who was the 2nd
horse down, and we left that check in 1st and 2nd. I basically
towed him over the next mountain--he was pretty much running out of
horse--and about 6 miles from the finish, we were passed by the pair
that had ridden into VC 2 with me and had been just minutes behind us
at VC3 as well. My little guy perked his ears and wanted to go on
in with them, but I figured what was the point, this being his very
first ride, and me not being willing to race at the finish at that
stage in his career anyway. So I followed hubby on in, 6 minutes
behind them, and finished 4th. The first two horses (very fit
campaigners) were elimitated from BC because of poor recoveries (I
don't think we had completion criteria yet). Hubby's horse was at
60 in 10 minutes and about the same at an hour. My little guy was
at 44, both at 10 minutes and at an hour. Hubby got BC, only
because I was still skinny back then, and he outweighed me by 50
lbs--my BC score was only 3 points lower than his.
Now, this is a horse who had a resting pulse of about 36, and ALWAYS
had a resting pulse of about 36, even in later years when he was far
fitter. What conditioning did was make us able to go into vet
checks at a trot while others walked in, and be down below 60 (on the
way to 40 or 44) by the time I could dismount and present him to a PR
crew. We passed a whole lot of horses that way.
My point in this long story is two-fold--one, that it is the
recovery capability that is important, not the resting HR (his was kind
of average), and two, that the RHR didn't change with conditioning--the
superior recovery rate just got better. Addtionally, this seems
to be very heritable--his sire was this way, his dam was pretty much
this way, ALL of his siblings were this way, and his offspring are
certainly tending to be this way as well.
Heidi
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