 |
RE: [RC] Percentage Body Weight - David LeBlancKat said: David LeBlanc said: Maybe we could get Mike Maul or Truman to do a quick and dirty 'study' and look at incidence of lameness pull by distance and weight division for a year or two - let's see what a big data set has to say with lots of different rides factored in. The AERC's data set contains no information with respect to the weight of horses being ridden. Consequently, if lameness is a function of total weight carried (horse + rider weight), then there is no way to glean this information from the AERC's data set. Nor can it determine if percentage of the horse's body weight carried has any effect on lameness pulls (or any other outcome). The AERC's data set actually contains very little information with respect to rider weight either. The weight division information is both self-declared (so consequently of dubious accuracy) and even if declared accurately only tells you of three minimums of rider weight (the featherweight division has no minimum and none of the weight divisions has a maximum). All very true, which is why there is no such thing as a perfect study. It is quick, and for the reasons you point out, dirty, and as cheap as writing a SQL query - they don't get much cheaper. It does overcome some of the flaws in the original study - huge dataset, extreme variations in terrain, and the ability to look at different distances. There's a good chance heavyweight riders are close to the magic 1200# number - all it takes is a 950# horse (pretty average for an Arab), and 211# (plus) tack and rider takes you to 1160+. One interpretation of the original study is that there is a high correlation between lameness pulls on extremely difficult, downhill, point-to-point, high pressure 100 mile rides. The findings may not hold for a loop ride, or a flat ride, or a slower ride. So we can predict Tevis pulls - can we predict anything else? You can also fairly well predict Tevis pulls by the number of miles experience of the horse, too. So it might be interesting to spend the $0.02 of computer time (if that) to run the query, and see what it says. If you see higher pull rates for lameness in HW riders overall, that's interesting. If it shows up in 50's that's really interesting. It may show up. If it does, then maybe someone would be interested in doing a bigger study that eliminates your objections _and_ the sample skew. One of the 'tests' we used when I was doing research was the "bloody obvious" test - if your results seemed obvious, good chance they're right. Makes sense that heavier horses wouldn't do as well at long, technical rides. Also makes sense that heavier riders would have more problems in that area. However, you did not see knights riding ponies, so that part doesn't completely make sense, which brings me back to questioning sampling skew. I don't think Tevis is a representative sample of even 100 mile rides, and it's certainly very different than 50's or multidays. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
|