>What this has to do with us? Well... if you are planning on
>taking your sea level trained horse to a "high altitude" ride
>plan on spending some weeks aclimating or figure you've
>lost 25% of your condition to be on the safe side.
I appreciate your research, but I must question its validity. 17,000
feet is different from 10,000; the heart rate does not tell the whole
story on physical performance; and horses are not people.
The experience of endurance riders suggests that sea-level horses
compete very well at high altitude. In my own experience I found that
I suffered ill effects from high altitude, but my horse did not.
--Joe Long jlong@hiwaay.net http://fly.hiwaay.net/~jlong/home.shtml