Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

One of the best recovering endurance horses that I have ever known 
was solid black.  I have a grey horse with a coarser coat that tends 
to keep heat in more than one of my bay horses that has a finer coat.

I think that in some cases darker horses compensate by developing 
even more veins close to the surface so that they can dissipate heat 
as well or better than a lighter colored horse.  A lot will depend 
upon the amount and type of heat training somebody does with each 
individual horse.

On the Tevis at least, when I ran the stats I don't remember there 
being any certain color of horse having a higher or lower completion 
rate over any other colored horse.  I think that there are a lot of 
other more important variables to consider, such as body condition score.

If you want to see how much difference ground surface temps can be, 
check out the readings I got this 
weekend: 
http://enduranceridestuff.com/blog/2009/07/figuring-park-ride-cool/ 
Interesting that sand would be hotter than road pavement, and check 
out the difference of black rubber mats in the sun versus 
shade.  Which leads to more consideration of heat retention, some 
things get hotter faster, or stay hotter (or cooler) longer.  When a 
horse is hot figuring out the coolest place to put them while in a 
vet check can definitely help the horse cool down faster.

Karen


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