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Re: [RC] glucometer - Sisu West Ranch

"....The Kentucky Derby was won by a horse named Old Rosebud in 1914 in 2:03. Horses are still winning that race in about the same times (forget about Secretariat... he really set a record of 1:59) and I imagine they also are being trained and fed more scientifically than in 1914..."
 

There was an interesting article in the Scientific American about this very thing a few years ago. I don't have my copy of the article, but there are indexes to that magazine and you could quickly find a copy at almost any public library. Most articles in Sci. Am. also have a good bibliography to the primary literature, usually written by the same person.

If my memory serves the gist of the article was that human times in sporting races have decreased dramatically in the last 100 years, but TB racing times have not. The conclusion was that the TB gene pool was already quite optimized for speed so little genetic improvement is possible, horses are better athletes,  and that training of short distance race horses was already pretty good.   All this implies that there was less room for improved training to make a difference. Human athletes have benefited greatly from better training partly because genetically we are not anywhere as good athletes.

My unsupported conclusion is that horses are remarkable athletes. Evolution appears to have optimized them for speed so that they could run from predators, at the same time humans were being optimized for larger better brains. Larger brains meant we would not have to run but could use the tools and language we were inventing to increase the chances that we would live to have lots of kids. If you then add to this ~4000 or so years of selective breeding by people for speed you have the modern horse who is a great athlete, and the modern human who seems to prefer to be an overweight couch potatoe. 

 

Ed
Ed & Wendy Hauser
2994 Mittower Road
Victor, MT 59875
 
(406) 642-9640
 

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Re: [RC] glucometer, MtnRondi