Re: RC: Standardbreds, dark colored horses & cooling out

["Carolyn Burgess" <carolyn_burgess@hotmail.com>]

Linda:

I'm so glad to see others considering Standardbreds for this sport.  I also, 
just got a Standardbred who is in re-training now.  I am cross posting to 
the SPHO egroup, where hopefully, you'll get more than my personal 
experience with the breed.  I have two Standardbreds and I don't find them 
any sweatier than my Arabian, but my Arabian is a real sweaty baby.  But the 
Arabian gets chilled easily, the Standardbreds do not.  Both of the 
Standardbreds are sweaty, my mare is the worst, but she has Cushings, so 
don't use her as a measure.  The other one, a gelding, gets sweaty, but 
cools out fairly quickly on his own.  I haven't even started sponging him on 
the trail yet, but his first bath cooled him out very quickly.  The mare is 
a dark bay, almost black, and the gelding, a medium bay.  Hopefully, you'll 
get answers back from the Standardbred group.  If your husband does get the 
STB, he might want to consider joining that group, since it focuses on STB's 
in all activities, including endurance.

Carolyn Burgess


----Original Message Follows----
From: Linda Flemmer <bluewolfranch@yahoo.com>
To: ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: RC:  Standardbreds, dark colored horses & cooling out
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 06:50:19 -0700 (PDT)

My husband has retired his geriatric endurance horse,
Major and he's starting to look for a replacement.  He
is currently looking at an 8 year old trotting
Standardbred off the track.  Vetted sound, fit, not
underweight, just starting under saddle.  He is
near-black in color and a lean body type..

Mike is wondering if anyone has experience in how well
a SB cools out?  His last horse was a lean body type,
black TB/QH cross.  They were only able to really
compete at cooler rides in the spring & fall because
of cooling issues.  Major would come into a check
panting and literally needed 2 or 3 muck buckets of
ice water to cool out enough to come to parameters.
(The horse was not over-worked, just got that hot at
walk/light trot).  He doesn't want to face that again.

Any words of wisdom or advice from folks competing on
standardbreds, especially dark colored ones?

Thanks!

Linda Flemmer
Blue Wolf Ranch
Bruceton Mills, WV

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