Re: Horse Height & Bone

["Mia Nalias" <arabs2go@hotmail.com>]

Frank,
I don't know why you saw Susan's response as confrontational. She was 
just trying to clarify her findings because she had been misquoted.  And 
she was not trying to throw statistics at YOU, the original post 
specifically asked for statistical significance, something that is 
always expected in scientific research.

Of course she knows the potential importance of all the other factors, 
but as she clearly explained, it is impossible to cover everything in a 
hectic situation as is found at Tevis. Lack of funding is also an 
unfortunate limitation. Controlling for all variables is usually only 
possible in laboratory settings.  As far as the anecdotal evidence (ie 
"I knew a horse that had meaty tendons..."; "in my experience..."), 
scientists can only use that sort of information to generate hypotheses 
and are unable to use it as evidence. For example, you might hypothesize 
that horses with meaty tendons cannot do 50 mile endurance races as 
successfully as horses with dry (defined) tendons.  After you gather two 
large groups of horses that are otherwise structurally and metabolically 
as similar as possible (except one group has meaty tendons, the other 
doesn't), then you are on your way to designing an experiment that just 
might test your hypothesis.  This is oversimplified, but hopefully will 
give you some idea what scientists are up against before they can say 
that something is "proven" - before that, nothing is proven and the 
evidence is anecdotal only.  Aside from Susan's work (and perhaps other 
scientists that haven't posted recently), almost everything on ridecamp 
is anecdotal or opinion.

Don't get me wrong, it is the experience that you and others bring to 
ridecamp that makes this forum such a great resource for new and 
long-time endurance riders alike. Experience is a wonderful teacher 
after all.

The bottom line is, there are too few scientists who are studying 
(endurance) horses, and we should be grateful that one of them is 
willing to share her findings with a non-scientific audience as is found 
on ridecamp. I, for one, hope she continues to do so despite the 
discouraging remarks of a few.
Mia

> Gee Susan,
>      Please stand down a bit.
>      My post to you concerned "front legs" only.  Certainly I realize 
the
>importance of other factors, as you stated in your post (which I noted 
the
>first time I read your post).
>      I just feel it is important to understand that the structural 
integrity
>of the leg, and it connective tissue (tendons/ligaments) is vital to 
the
>endurance potential of horses.  I have seen too many folks "focus" on 
size of
>the front cannons and not worry enough about what is under those 
significant
>cannons.
>      One person remarked to me, "Look at the size of her cannon 
bones".  I
>did.  They were substantial.  But truthfully, the mare was pigeon toed 
and
>that, COUPLED with the center of her knees pointing outside the medial 
line,
>all I could see was tendonitis down the trail due to her twisted 
cannons.
>(Her "meatiness" was obvious to me.)
>      And please don't feel the need to throw a bunch of statistics at 
me.
>They fascinate me, but as you can probably tell, I am easily confused.
>BTW, I prefer large cannons on my horses and am always surprised when I 
see a
>horse with what I consider a small CBC (but dry, iron-like and clean
>tendons/sheath) go on and on and on...
>      Best regards,
>       Frank.
>


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