Re: Newbie query: why required weight?

[Truman Prevatt <truman.prevatt@netsrq.com>]

I guess I should expand on this a bit.  The amount of physical work
varies portionally to the mass carried.  The horse has to convert
chemical energy to mechinacal energy to perform this work.  Now all
other things being equal the more work required the more chemical energy
that is needed.  This conversion results in heat which has to be
removed.  The horse cools itself through evaporative cooling. 

Evapoartive cooling happens because the relative humidity at the skin of
the hrose is less than in the air around the horse and heat is removed
from skin.  The physics involved is the sweat going from a liquid to a
gas - water vapor - which requires energy.  This energy requirement is
the latent heat of evaporation and can be looked up for water if one is
interested.

In humid conditions the relative humity around the animal is high and
the sweat doesn't evaporate, it rolls off.  When sweat rolls off it does
not provide any cooling.  

So I would suspect that in humid conditions there is some safe limit to
the rate of conversion of chemical energy to mechanical energy because
there is a limit to the removal of heat.  In that case there would be a
limit to the work that could be performed which is a function of the
mass carried.

Truman Prevatt wrote:
> 
> Susan,
> 
> In what part of the contry was the data collected?  I can believe that
> in the drier climets such as the mountain region, SW and West coast that
> this would be the case.   For the most part the normal thermoregulation
> processes are not impeeded by humidity.
> 
> I would like to see the data in the SE and NE regions.  From just
> looking around there seems to be a very lopsided proportion of feather
> and lightweights in the top 10 of most of our rides.
> 
> The other difference between the SE and other regions is for the most
> part our rides are flat and the 3 1/2 winning times are really over 50
> miles and by gooly horses really do 100 miles in less than 8 hours down
> here.
> 
> Did you work include the SE region?
> 
> Truman
> 
> --
> Truman Prevatt
> Mystic “The Horse from Hell” Storm
> Rocket a.k.a. Mr. Misty
> Jordy a.k.a. Bridger (when he is good)
> Danson Flame - hey dad I'm well now and ready to go!
> 
> Brooksville, FL

-- 
Truman Prevatt
Mystic “The Horse from Hell” Storm
Rocket a.k.a. Mr. Misty
Jordy a.k.a. Bridger (when he is good)
Danson Flame - hey dad I'm well now and ready to go!

Brooksville, FL