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Re: Philosophy




> Gotta put my two cents in here about older endurance horses.

Sorry for the misunderstanding--I wasn't talking about endurance horses
specifically, I was talking about horses in general all over the US.  It
was just supposed to be a "what if" post, anyway.  As usual with
horse-related things, there is a frustrating lack of scientific data--it's
all hearsay and tradition and "well, it works for so-and-so so I guess
I'll give it a go".  Not that these things don't have their merits, but
there are just so many variables it's hard to say what's really getting
good results and what's not.  Horses are just too expensive to do REAL,
controlled scientific studies with; you really need animals with identical
genetic backgrounds that live under identical conditions, so that you only
change the variable you're interested in.  Of course this will never
happen, so a lot of our questions will never get answered in a
satisfactory way.  We just have to make the decisions that work for us and
hope we're doing the right thing by our horses.  Since most horse people
are very used to learning by hearsay, it's very easy for us to jump on
something that's well-advertised or long-accepted without thinking about
it much, and just as easy to discount other ideas that may be equally
creditable, but maybe came from a source that we don't know as well or
that our respected trainer dislikes.  A lot of faith put in the tried &
true, or even just the tried.  :)

Anyway, I hope this makes sense--I really didn't set out to raise any
hackles or convince anyone of anything.  But, looks like I succeeded in
the former and failed in the latter despite my best intentions of failing
at both.  :)

My apologies again, and I will try my best to keep lurking.

Abby



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