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[RC] Metabolics of Endurance Horses - k s swigart

Heidi said:

On the track, given quality horses, put your money on the TB.
 That is his specialty, and he does it well.
 One of the things that scares me about selecting track horses
for Arabian breeding generation after generation is that they
stand to lose some of their metabolic capability for endurance.
And before kat jumps all over me here, Dr. Barry Grant did
a great study on this out of WSU several years ago, conditioning
Arabs and TBs for 50-milers, and riding them together at rides.
He took muscle biopsies during and after the 50s and did glycogen
stains and I think several other parameters as well.  There IS a
difference--a HUGE difference.

I have never denied that there is a difference (even a HUGE difference)
between the metabolic capabilities of a TB and an Arabian.  After all,
you don't have to have even a "quality" thoroughbred to outrun an
Arabian at the "middle distances" used in flat track racing.  And this
isn't just because thoroughbreds are taller (even a short thoroughbred
will be able to outrun a tall arabian), it is because metabolically they
are different.

What I deny is that a horse that has been bred and selected as, say,  a
cow horse metabolically makes a better endurance prospect than one that
has been bred and selected for ability to successfully run both
aerobically and anaerobically at those middle distances.  I readily
agree that such horses are more mentally suited to the sport, but am
unwilling to concede that metabolically this is the case.

The ability to mobilize energy both for aerobic and anaerobic effort
(unlike for the QH distance) along with the incredible stresses
associated mechanically with such high speeds is, from a physiological
standpoint, probably the best physiological test for capability as an
endurance horse (if you ask me).  Where the big draw back to TBs is,
they really DON'T know how to take care of themselves (they will run
themselves to death on adrenaline alone, and many have done so), and the
thing that might make me leary of a race bred arabian would be its
mentality. However, it has only been the last 20 or so years that
arabians have been bred exclusively for this purpose, rather than
300-400 that thoroughbreds have. Up until recently (and even now in some
countries), the race track has been only one of the performance tests
that they have used as selection criteria for Arabian. Up until WWII,
the Poles were breeding Arabians mostly as cavalry mounts (and that is
pretty much what the Bedouins bred them for for centuries) but make no
mistake, the ability to race middle distances successfully was a major
criteria in the selection process of those horses (even the Bedouin
horses).

A few hundred years from now, race bred arabians may have had their
self-preservation bred out of them, but it hasn't been going on for long
enough yet to turn very many of them into horses that can't take care of
themselves, and if endurance riders divert them from the racing scene
now, they can have access to the physiological testing without getting
too much of the "race horse mentality."  And if, on the other hand, they
performance test them in BOTH disciplines, they can get the best of both
worlds.

I'd take a successful arabian race horse turned endurance horse any day
over somebody's "the most recent successful competitive horse in the
pedigree was 4 generations back" horse any day.

At the same time, I also would be uninterested in a pedigree littered
with, close up, what is succeeding in the show ring today, because the
selection criteria of the Arabian show ring is, pretty much, anything
that can't be ridden :) (although the recent advent of the "sport horse"
classes may change this).

kat
Orange County, Calif.

kat
Orange County, Calif.



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Arabians were bred for years primarily as a war horse and those
requirements are similar to what we do today with endurance riding. 
~  Homer Saferwiffle

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