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Re: [RC] Will a horse run itself to death? YES!//MAYBE - Beverley H. Kane, MDBen, I've been thinking about this question since someone posted about oxygen debts in horses. First, having an aneurysm burst is a fairly sudden event that happens without warning and plays out rapidly. That is, there's not a gradual feeling of exhaustion that the horse (or person) runs through by sheer force of will. So in that sense, the horse didn't "run himself" to death. Usually aneurisms are -congenital- weaknesses in the cerebral arteries. They are time bombs waiting for the wrong moment. These anatomical anomalies are not caused by overexertion (and the attendant increase in cerebral blood pressure) but the ultimate rupture may be. (Or may not be...aneurisms in humans can rupture at rest.) Second, I have been re-reading "John Lyons on Horses" where he describes basic training in the round pen. He makes use of the "pain in the lungs" that a horse feels when he is being run harder than comfortable. According to Lyons, the negative reinforcement of removing the discomfort in the horse's lungs is a training motivator. So that tells me that horses definitely feel that short-of-breath sensation that makes us humans want to stop and repay our oxygen debts. I don't doubt that some horses will give their all to a rider who pushes them them unto collapse/cardiac arrest. But left to their own devices, and in absence of a predator, I don't believe a horse will run himself to death because he "can't feel his oxygen debt." One of the most interesting things in the AERC training manual is the recommendation that horses do anaerobic threshold training for conditioning. AT is the point where we go from aerobic to anaerobic metabolism, as indicated by starting to feel out of breath. This technique is a key part of track, xc, and distance training in human athletes. Beverley From: Ridecamp Guest <guest-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2006 01:24:26 GMT To: <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [RC] Will a horse run itself to death? YES! Please Reply to: Ben Cooper bencooper21@xxxxxxxxx or ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================== Just last weekend I was watching a race on local TV. As the horses were racing through the back stretch a horse running towards the end of the pack began acting weird before collapsing on the track. A slow motion showed the horse snorting blood just before collapsing. It turns out he suffered an aneurysm in mid race, collapsed and died with seconds. As he collapsed he got in the way of another horse who also fell but immediately got up unhurt and run into a side gate out of harm's way. The jockeys of both horses suffered minor injuries (Thank God). It could have been much worse. Ben Cooper =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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 Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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 Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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