Re: RC: efficient gaits

["Linda B. Merims" <lbm@ici.net>]

Teddy Lancaster wrote:
> 
> There should be NO discrepancy between race horses and endurance
> horses....endurance horses are not trained (and need not be trained) to go at
> top speed.  BUT, race horses NEED (MUST HAVE) the base that endurance horses get
> from LSD.  If you add some miles at speed (after a good foundation is laid)
> through interval work, you will NOT hurt your horse and you WILL improve his
> capabilities tremendously.
> 
> Teddy
> 
> PS: Race horse LSD is GALLOP work!!!!  Not at TOP speed, but a gallop none the
> less.

For whatever reasons--whether because they don't work or because racehorse
people tend to be extremely resistant to change--Ivers' ideas as exemplified
in _The Fit Racehorse_ have never gained more than a toehold in the
racing industry.  He's actually had more success gaining followers
in the standardbred world than the thoroughbred world, but even there
his ideas are controversial.  (Big surprise :-)

Wasn't Tom himself questioning the applicability of interval training, which
is designed to increase a horse's anaerobic thresholds, to endurance
conditioning, which is largely aerobic, when he first arrived on Ridecamp
several years ago?  I lost track--how did that debate ever turn out?

Linda B. Merims
lbm@ici.net
Massachusetts, USA


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