Ridecamp: Re: [RC] The Aging Equine Athlete!

On Mon, 24 Jun 2002 14:42:53 +0200, "Kristene Smuts"
<Ksmuts@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>>>I don't know about time to mature, but I believe smaller horses have
>an advantage for staying sound -- shorter bones providing less
>leverage and concussion on the joints.  If you look at Kahlil's
>profile, he was even shorter-legged than the average horse of his
>height:  deep through the chest with short cannon bones.  That's one
>of the reasons I don't want a horse taller than 14.3.>>
>
>Not being good at maths and stuff, but ..... being smaller would 
>that not mean that the horse would have a shorter stride and thus 
>have to take more steps to cover the same distance as a taller, 
>longer strided horse?

Yes, all else being equal ... but I expect that most of the effects of
more strides per mile are linear whereas some of the stresses/stride
are exponential, so there is a net benefit to the shorter horse.  Some
of this has to do with the cube/square relationship, which also
affects a horse's cooling ability.  As the height goes up (linear) the
skin area increases as the square of the height increase (square) but
the body mass and weight increases as the cube of the height increase.
On a larger scale, this is why an ant can carry many times his own
weight where loading several times his own weight on a horse would
crush him flat.



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
 Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net.
 Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp
 Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=