Re: RC: where to get ex-racehorse arabs?

[Lif Strand <fasterhorses@gilanet.com>]

At 12:58 PM 1/10/01, Tammy wrote:
>     Arabs off the track are started as a 3 year old.

Well, just to be cantankerous, I went to the Los Alamitos page linked to 
ARAC.  The first 10 stakes races listed are for 3 y.o. and up - I'm betting 
that the horses entered in these races aren't started as 3 year olds at all!

But that's not my point (nor is Susan G's right-on post about money what 
I'm aiming at here).  My point is that if AERC, looking to a horse's best 
interests, says they shouldn't be stressed to do even LDs until they're 4 
years old, why would horses that have been stressed mightily as 2 year olds 
(and in the case of non-Arabs, probably 18 month old horses) make good 
endurance prospects?

I'm talking strictly physiology here.  Is AERC off base about the stress of 
endurance, or is track racing not that stressful (in spite of bowed 
tendons, stress fractures and all those "normal" injuries to track 
horses)?  Is the concept of LSD for endurance horses just a bunch of hooey 
when it comes down to it?  No one is going to convince me that track horse 
training and the LSD concept are even remotely the same.



Lif Strand
Quemado NM  USA
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