Re: dem' bones

[Susan Evans Garlinghouse <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

Karen, I've been off in Japan at the Iceep meetings, but this is what my
area of research concerns.  We've collected data on over 600 horses now
(all at Tevis) and could find no correlation between horses carrying X
percent of their own bodyweight and either improved or decreased
performance.  There were a number of horses that carried 32-33% of their
own weight that completed and got their buckle, and a few horses that
carried around 28-30% and top tenned.

As our data bank gets larger, we're MAYBE starting to see a trend that
it's the body weight of the horse that has more effect than does weight
of the rider.  We THINK it affects lameness problems, but really can't
make a prediction yet until we collect more data.

We have also analyzed cannon bone measurements and have yet to find a
predictable relationship.  We suspect that there are just too many other
variables such as conformation, shoeing, bone density, etc that also
make a difference and that a simple prediction is impossible to make. 
However, we did find that the average endurance horse has a cannon bone
circumference of around 7 1/2" for an average body weight of 864 pounds,
which we suspect is larger than the measurement from any old random
horse.  That might give you a small bit of info, but there were lots of
exceptions as well.

All of these results were the paper that I presented in Japan on the
24th.  The results were valid under these specific circumstances, how
well they will hold true at other types of rides has yet to be
determined.

Hope this helps,

Susan Garlinghouse, MS
Cal Poly University, Pomona



guest@endurance.net wrote:
> 
> PLEASE DO NOT REPLY TO GUEST@ENDURANCE.NET!!!
> You must post replies to the actual sender listed below.
> 
> From: Karen Frogner
> Email: frogi@molalla.net
> 
> Hi, I have a question about the weight carrying abilities of horses. I have heard that a horse should not carry more than 25% of it's weight. Is this an accepted rule in the endurance ridecamp? Does canon bone circumfrence affect this rule? Thanks in advance for any information on this question you can send me. Karen Frogner or frogi@molalla.net