Re: cannon bone size

["David M. Garlinghouse, Esq." <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

Jack, that study was mine.  It'll be coming out in the published
journals in the next few months, and I'll be submitting an article to EN
as soon as I can finish editing it.  Also, if you make it to the Reno
convention, I'll be talking about it there.

However, the short answer is that we couldn't find a statitical
difference in cannon circumference between completions and pulls, but
the average measurement for all entries was about 7 1/2" measured midway
between knee and fetlock.  Because Tevis entries are not a random
population, we drew the conclusions that 7 1/2" is a good measurement to
shoot for in an average sized (950 pound) horse and the more the
better.  We also concluded that many horses with inadequate bone went
lame prior to entering Tevis and so weren't there to be measured in the
first place.

We attempted to prove a hypothesis that would have nailed down better
predictions based on CBC, but the hypothesis didn't prove out---which in
itself indicated that CBC is only one of MANY factors to consider when
looking at a prospect.  Of course, look at angles, joints and all that.

One thing we recently managed to pick out of the analysis was that the
smaller horses did better---horses that at good condition had a body
weight of under about 1050-1100 pounds had less incidence of lameness
than bigger horses, regardless of any other factor.

Hope this helps you out a bit.

Susan G

Jack_Weaver@cc.chiron.com wrote:
> 
>      I think I remember a study of cannon bone length and diameter in
>      endurance (Tevis?) horses.  Can anyone tell me where I can find it?  I
>      looked around the Tevis home page and some in the ridecamp archives
>      without success.  I'm looking at a new prospect with what I would call
>      medium size legs and would like to see how he compares to some
>      successful endurance horses.
> 
>      Thanks for any help
> 
>      Jack