| Author | Message | ||
     Gallop136 Junior Member Username: Gallop136 Post Number: 8 Registered: 09-2008 |
Perhaps it would be useful to track the known differences between human and equine as we address them, as it may eventually provide insights or allow rationalization of modified training protocols, equine vs human. Some already touched on here, which may or may not prove relevant are: Significant spleen dump of sequestered blood cells at onset of strenuous activity. [effects blood parameters, HR, performance to some degree] "The horse's heart, probably because it is so very large, is innervated slightly differently from other animals, receiving the signal through the ventricles all at once, rather than as a gradual spread." [potential effects heart monitoring and ECG usefulness beyond simple rate derivation] | ||
| Joe_geiser Intermediate Member Username: Joe_geiser Post Number: 20 Registered: 07-2008 |
So a good spleen dump immediately preceding a race could be a good thing. That's what I've found. I don't know if this is a valid correlation but many of the horses I have driven following a good spleen dump do a good bowel dump generally just seconds before the race. I've always liked that. | ||
| Joe_geiser Senior Member Username: Joe_geiser Post Number: 36 Registered: 07-2008 |
Happy Holidays every one. We've been quiet. Maybe it's time get some dialogue going again and even kick it up a notch. First our first Course I for horses in January did not materialize, but not to worry. It's going to happen and probably over the years, there will be many. Andrew and I have teamed up by working with one of my horses...Allentown. It's getting REAL interesting and we are seeing some indicators that we are very much on the right track. Andrew is fun to work with and I have probably learned more about exercise physiology and bio-chemistry in the last 3 months than I have learned in the last 3 years...remember I have been training racehorses (part-time) for only 7 years with no horse experience at all prior to that. More on Allentown and our upcoming Courses (I & II) later. Here's what's prompting this post. I have just re-read an article from an unknown human exercise source on Central Governor Model. You can read it here: http://www.rcswins.com/thoroughbred_essa ys/noaks/noakes.pdf My question is, since some of the CGM idea seems to relate to a conscious process of thinking or mental activity, considering that horses are unable to reason and make logical decisions, is CGM valid for horses? | ||
| Echelon Senior Member Username: Echelon Post Number: 28 Registered: 11-2009 |
You have two horses, both breed from good racing stock. One has a high HR and is trained. The other one does not and gets culled. However, the one with the high HR has a respiratory limitation that cannot be overcome and is not successful racing. The other horses cardiac limitation that was identified perhaps by the low max HR is trained and is highly successful. Or in a less extreme case, both horses are trained to their full potential and do well in racing. I see this is a completely different way of doing things in the horse race industry and one that bears trying out. That was my first thought - isn't the primary goal to take all horses that have been bred to race to their fullest potential - including the High max HR horse? Isn't it financially better to get a return on all of your investments, not just some? There are many similarities between humans and horses but there is one major difference that I will be seeking to understand. Humans self-select themselves into athletics (excluding over bearing parents). Humans have a will and an instrinsic motivation towards certain sports and seek out knowledge to help them be as successful as their bodies and minds allow them to be. Horses are told they are going to race and cannot speak their feelings in words. Do all horses bred to race "want" to race? How does a horse know to run fast? What is their motivation? Is it just fun? A dog runs fast in play because it is fun. A dog runs fast is a race becuase it is chasing a rabbit or other yummy object. Some of it is just instinct. Some animals seek to please, others are less easy to figure out. Why does a horse run fast? What positive and negative motivating factors are used in horse training and racing? I know the role of a jockey and that isn't really what I am asking. And this is a largely theoretical question - and perhaps irrelevant. You don't have to answer me unless you really want to - I will read until I understand the training of horses from a fundamental level. So that is the second thought I had as I went about my day yesterday - what motivates a horse? And my final thought was about a lot of the discussion about the way we express ourselved on the forum. I think everyone has been nothing but polite in their exchange of ideas. For me, a forum is a place to do just that - exchange of ideas. There is always a lot of worry that people are going to say the wrong thing, offend or step on someone's toes. I am here to learn and I have questions. I am not questioning anyone's ethics or moral fiber or being critical of anyone's intelligence. I may disagree with an idea but that is the way new ideas are formed. I think everyone on this forum has a piece of a very large and complex puzzle. Some pieces of information are very old but still releveant. some pieces of information are very new and as yet untested and seems crazy. I want to know what works and why, if possible. Can what works be understood to the point it can be made better? What doesn't work, and why? Can we sidestep what doesn't work? Horses are expensive. Training race horses is even more expensive. I would think that everyone's goal here is to use all tools available to us, to make a horse as fast as possible, as consistent as possible, with the least amount of money spent. Figure out which tools work and why, stop using the tools that are proven to not work and come up with a way to allow horses to be really fast, over and over again. Happy thinking, Jennisse | ||
| Leonie Senior Member Username: Leonie Post Number: 85 Registered: 07-2008 |
The most major difference between horses and humans is that humans can reason and horses or animals do not. This is very significant because when humans decide that a horse needs to be trained, like Echelon said, the horse has no choice but to comply “or else”, I call that slavery. This is the exact reason why I am using scientific parameters to “choose” which horse I wish to train to become race horses and which ones I will “cull” before starting down that very expensive and time consuming path of race training. I guess that statement comes from the 30 years of practicing training horses that can win that race every now and then, but cannot bring in the big bucks that it takes to become successful. Horses love to run fast which is their way of keeping themselves fit because they ARE prey animals. I also found that horses love to run very fast on the high speed treadmills because the scenery does not change when they are moving, so they don’t have to worry about being chased or unfamiliar objects. Horses can only think of one thing at a time, unlike most other species. There is a way that humans can learn to speak the horse’s body language and become part of the herd, rather than an object to fear. Humans, through this interaction, can become the leader in the herd as well. A herd can be comprised of only one horse and one human. That is the way that I train my horses, they comply to the stimulus of my body language that I present, therefore they become desensitized and I am then able to teach them how to learn. This is a very important key in horse training because without this teaching the horse tends to stay in a confused state, negatively complying with becoming a “slave”. This in turn causes a lot of improper conditioning and leads to early breakdown in horses. There are many tools available to “cull” horses that do not have the parameters to become outstanding athletes and I aim to utilize them. | ||
| Juerg Senior Member Username: Juerg Post Number: 2841 Registered: 04-2006 |
"This is a very important key in horse training because without this teaching the horse tends to stay in a confused state, negatively complying with becoming a “slave”. This in turn causes a lot of improper conditioning and leads to early breakdown in horses. " First Leonie, nice and great info and I really enjoy the reading. It is very interesting , that potentially many horse trainers are better coaches and would be great coaches for humans than the opposite. Many of the top so called PRO athletes are in a very confused state. You see this in many interviews. Here is the difference as in this moments the confused state is very clear. The majority of human horses are actual Slaves. Otherwise we would not have all the daily denial of Drug tests and the explanation , that they do not know , where it was coming from. It is the tooth paste or the fruit snack or the meat or the drink or what ever. Similar like a great racehorse,which will get the food from the trainer or coach the confused slave Pro athletes gets it from his so called Ph.D exercise physiologist. The majority in time investment over the last few years in humans was not dedicated to actual ideas on how to improve on what we have, rather than to try to add on what we do not have. We over-train pro athletes so that their body will create catabolic reactions ( and than we inject them with anabolic steroid. We never will see a doctor injecting catabolic steroids but always anabolic helpers to improve recovery. We ask Pro athletes on their own tools ( own body ) they give you info on the weight of their bike, the aerodynamic of their helmet, the air resistance or water resistance of their swim suit or bike cloth. You ask them about their respiration rate ???? about the Tidal volume ???? You not even get an answer from the coach. Good to be a horse where many many things are much better done than in many pro discipline. You know, I was very sceptical on many of your inputs but I have to tell you , once on this days I have to come and learn from you much more on the way you use and train horses, as we may learn more than we think on how to deal with human "slaves" .My idea in human athletes is really to use the advantage horses do not have and try to integrate the human brain from the athlete in the planning of recovery and workouts. This is only possible , if we have athletes or better ,coaches , who understand , that we do not own an athlete, that we have to share ideas with different people from different areas of exercise physiology , that there is not one way to a health body and therefor a health performance and that we are able to learn a lot from other areas like I learn here from you. I like to close this idea with a brilliant brain. Mc Lean and his ideas on the human situation . Let the picture talk for itself. Thanks Leonie and all the horse forum contributor for this interesting info's you share with us.  | ||
| Gallop136 Senior Member Username: Gallop136 Post Number: 58 Registered: 09-2008 |
I don't know what part of the brain allows it, or if there are systemic nervous system differences, but I've been of the opinion that the racehorses central governor is different than humans in that they can literally kill themselves through exertion.(Usually heat generation related) I don't know if an untrained human would die if you pushed them too hard. I think they'll likely pass out first. I don't think I've ever heard of a horse go unconscious. Quite literally, we have bred the relief valve out of the horse. I see human athletes who seem to have trained themselves to "push their governor", but with a racehorse you almost start at that point. That seems to be a fundamental difference in terms of physiology. | ||
| Leonie Senior Member Username: Leonie Post Number: 86 Registered: 07-2008 |
There have been a couple of horses in my conditioning program that had a hard time dissipating their heat and overheated to nearly collapsing. Both of these horses needed to be on IV fluids for 24 hours and both survived. While racing in California, I saw several horses go down and/or pass out from their heat after the race. I believe that if these horses were not being “made to run” they would have stopped running before they would pass out or collapse. I believe that Mother Nature would not allow us to breed something as important as a governor out of them. Most racehorses run because the others are running, this is horse survival instinctive behavior because they are prey. The leaders will lead and then there is the rest of the field that follow until the central governor slows the leaders down and others take over. This seems to be how horses race. The first fractions of the race are about 3 to 6 seconds faster per quarter than the last quarter of the race and someone always wins. Of course, I believe that conditionin | ||
| Joe_geiser Senior Member Username: Joe_geiser Post Number: 214 Registered: 07-2008 |
YOU PEOPLE ARE ON FIRE!!! Here's a war story: I recall about 7 years ago and 3 years of experience with horses, I was paying Tom Ivers a consulting fee of $200 a month per horse (2 horses: Mr Heartache and JoJo Road). Tom was telling me (long distance and mostly by e-mail) what to do but unfortunately what not to do and I was on a strict schedule. Tom was an interesting dude for sure, he made it clear to me up front that as long as he was having fun I could continue to send him $400 a month. In this instance the only time I could workout Mr H was a Sunday before the races at Pocono Downs, it was very hot and humid. I did what I was told. We were on a 5 half-mile interval program with each interval going faster than the last and 5 minutes of walking between the intervals, it was a bitch of a workout but we did it. Tom said I was not ready to use a horse heart monitor yet. When I brought the horse back to the barn, everybody was up at the track, I could see that Heartache was having a problem. We got to the barn, I'm off the cart and walking forward unhooking the overcheck which we should not have been using, H started leaning against me. We stood there for what seemed like an eternity and I swear that if I moved the poor guy would have gone down. I'm not sure what that means in relation to the above posts, but Mr Heartache was absolutely willing to do what ever I asked. I'm glad I was able to help him stay on all 4 when he needed me. I continued to learn from Tom for 2 more months as I recall but when I started to question some of his input he dumped me. Mr Heartache was winning some nice money however and the next spring was claimed for $10,000. I think we paid $5000 for him. Tom was way ahead of his time. When he died a few years later I understand he was smoking a couple of packs a day and grossly overweight. Tom was a character for sure. He respected Leonie greatly as she stood up to his intimidating nature and won her fair share of debates. He willed to her his extensive library of horse books. Sorry Leonie if I told a tale out of school. I think we are blessed to have this opportunity to share so many ideas, some old and some new but all cogent to helping improve the performance the wonderful horses in our care. Safety and humanity of course always prevail. I love you guys. J | ||
| Gallop136 Senior Member Username: Gallop136 Post Number: 69 Registered: 09-2008 |
Hi Folks, Hope you all are racing well... There is a bit of a debate raging right now in racing circles here in NA regarding the use of race day medications. Some people say it time to ban the use of this drug which was allowed in the 60's - 70's..(NA is out of step with the rest of the world in that it allows Lasix a diuretic to combat the racehorse propensity to bleed in the lung (EIPH), but can also mask other drug use.) Anyway, it will likely get ugly with the the pro-drug people saying it is cruel to deprive horses of this drug, and others asking "why can everyone else in the world run without it" I have seen very little new info in all these discussions, but I did make note of this comment by someone on a blog (who purports to be a vet) I think this statement is ridiculous and lacks any back up data, yet it is interesting to explore and think about given this forums relatively deep understanding of all things, blood and lung...[my coments in brackets] "Thoroughbreds are consummate athletes. Even unfit, they have an oxygen consumption (measure of athletic efficiency) equal to elite human athletes.[really? Measured how?] Thoroughbreds bleed because their pulmonary blood pressure has to increase equal to the pressure going out to the exercising muscles. The blood goes through their lungs so fast that the hemoglobin does not become fully oxygenated.[BS detector is activated] This is a unique feature of horses (ie no other exercising animal does this)[BS detector on high alert]. This is an inherent reason that horses bleed: they have evolved to be ultimately efficient,[BS detector on high] which means that exceeding the ultimate efficiency point even for a millisecond results in breakage. It is therefore our responsibility to do everything in our power to prevent this, if it is possible.[Dubious extrapolation in my opinion, used to justify Lasix use]... Thoughts re: blood not fully oxygenated and uniqueness in horses? Thoughts re:lung gas blood exchange barrier being "trainable" ie. adapts to stressors like most any other body part. Cheers, | ||
| Bpressey Senior Member Username: Bpressey Post Number: 74 Registered: 10-2008 |
Timely topic Gallop, here is my $0.02 (from a guy who just was at a large farm in FL where every young 2yo was injected with Lasix in training prior to each breeze): America uses drugs, no one else does for the most part. But, we do race on an unforgiving dirt surface mostly and our horses are often stabled trackside where they get 9 min of exercise a day in an environment full of allergens. I want drugs out, but it may not be so simple as comparing us to turf runners worldwide. The American way is to take drugs: too fat? take a pill. high cholesterol? take a pill. etc. Nearly 50% of all commercials on TV urge you to medicate your ills away. That being said, the 'old way' was that a horse had to be proven to bleed in a race before he was allowed Lasix, until vets started to game the system. The real problem, in my opinion, is the designer drugs we cannot test for: the equine versions of the 'cream' and the 'clear' that ran rampant in sports for 10 years before a jealous coach exposed Victor Conte and his BALCO crew. In horses these take the form of bronchodilators, substances to increase O2 release from RBCs, and believe it or not, still EPO. |