Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I think it's also the size of the horses, and their immaturity - at least in these high profile races like the Triple Crown races, Breeders Cup, etc.  Not only are they going a lot faster, but they're huge compared to most endurance horses.  17 to 18 hands vs. 14 to 15 hands.   A lot more mass going down that track, a lot more stress, more torque on those legs and hooves.

 

Carla Richardson
Colorado
 

On 5/4/08, Truman Prevatt <tprevatt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The difference between endurance and horse racing is simple physics - the race horse is going 35 mph  the endurance horse 12.5 mph (12.5 mph will buy you a 4 hour 50 and an 8 hour 100).  The energy that has to be managed by the horses legs and muscles at 35 mph is 7.84 times tje energy that has to be managed at 12.5 mph.  The intensity of the horse race is the issue.

The Boeing 787 can be flown completely by computer including take off and landing. Of course a man will be at the helm during those times, but the control system on board is that good. Many military aircraft are being designed to be flown completely by computer. The first autopilot system tested - well the plane rolled and would have crashed if not for the pilot taking over.

What makes the 787 so good - the number of sensors and the higher sampling rate feeding the computer, that is the observability of what is going on with the aircraft. The second thing that makes it so good is we know now much better how the various sensor payloads react in various situations. I believe that we could do the same thing with biological systems if we better understood the intricate workings. There is more to heart rate - that just BSP as this article points out.

There is information there - how do we use it is the question.

Truman

Dyane Smith wrote:

I'm no fan of racing two year olds, but as Truman points out, high intensity
sports are high risk.  Dr. Ross' (Equus May 2008) has developed a method to
give a scientific underpinning to the horseman's instinctive awareness of
the horse that "ain't doin' right".   The method uses computerized formulas
to examine a horse's heart rate variability.  Many of us already have heart
rate monitors and are aware that a higher heart rate could indicate trouble.
Heart rate variability is different.  It measures the interval between the
heart beats.  It's already being used in human medicine to do things like
predict the survival rate of cardiac patients.  Dr. Ross' method has been
shown to predict the breakdown of race horses up to three months before
there were any outward clinical signs.

I wish that AERC could partner with Dr. Ross to do a large scale study of
the method.  It seems to me that we could all benefit from knowing that our
horses were at risk before a ride.

Probably Truman or some others of you who understand the science behind this
could explain it all better here.  But I was very impressed by the article
in Equus.

Dyane


 

--

"Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true." Bertrand Russell


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

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!!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=