Hi Tom and Everyone else,
BOY, do I love this line of discussion! I ABSOLUTELY agree with Tom's
observations that the "hatracks" cannot perform as well as horses with
some groceries on board. As many of you know, having participated in
the study yourselves, this past summer as well as the previous summer, I
collected data for a research project at the Tevis ride, observing the
weight carrying ability of horses as a function of the amount of body
fat they had. When we started the project, we thought it a logical
assumption that horses carrying a heavier rider should finish behind the
horses carrying the lighter rider, right? After all, as Tom will tell
you, just a few pounds can make a big difference in a racehorse.
Admittedly, there's a big difference between a one mile run and a 50-100
mile trot, but it seemed a logical assumption, right? WRONG! It turned
out that how much weight the horse was carrying in relation to his own
body size was TOTALLY IRRELEVANT to where he finished in the placings,
or even if he finished at all.
What DID make a MAJOR difference to a horse's performance was how much
body fat the horse had on him. We body-conditioned scored over 400
horses, weighed them and their riders and then looked at how well they
did over the Tevis course. It turns out that the horses that have don't
have ribs showing, don't have the hips and poverty line showing---in
short, are "plump" or at least have a reasonable amount of body fat on
them---were by far the most successful group, REGARDLESS of the amount
of rider weight they had to carry over that course. We also found a
strong correlation that as body fat reserves decreased, the miles
completed before they were pulled decreased. In other words, the
thinner he was, the faster he got into trouble. And THEN, rider weight
did make a difference---in short, the faster your horse ran out of fuel,
the faster he got tired and either got sloppy and put a foot wrong and
became lame, or ran into metabolic problems, or just couldn't maintain a
quick enough pace to keep up with cutoff times. The bottom line is if
you're going to ask a horse to carry you over an endurance course and
finish it, you better give him a full gas tank to start with. Ribs and
hip bones showing means you're compromising your chances of a
completion.
Although this is only one study, the results very strongly suggest that
if a horse has the body reserves of fat he needs to produce energy, he
can carry a load in excess of 25-30% of his own body weight over a 100
mile course and not only finish, but even be right up there in the
standings. HOWEVER, if a horse has reduced or minimal amounts of body
fat/flesh to draw upon, that horse is not only progressively LESS likely
to finish the ride at, he is also increasingly impaired by the increased
amount of weight he must carry.
Before everyone starts sending me stories of Ol' Ichabod in back that
has a billion endurance miles and looks like a zipper, please remember
that these results are based on the overall statistics of the sample
population. There are always going to be exceptions to the rule. Even
during this study, there were a FEW (VERY few) overly thin horses that
"made it" when we didn't expect them to. Invariably, there was some
other factor that probably made a difference---a very experienced rider,
a very experienced horse, whatever. Nevertheless, the results apply
that ON AVERAGE, the thin horse will not perform as well as the
moderately-fleshed horse. Rather than telling yourself Ol' Ichabod is
one of the Chosen Few and he does just fine at 575 pounds, why don't you
try putting on some extra fat and seeing what he can REALLY do?
Keep in mind that this study also didn't look at anything other than
body fat and rider weight. There are other factors that would tend to
favor the horse carrying the lighter weight---for example, less weight
means less concussion and strain on the tendons and feet. However, this
is a strong argument to GO OUT AND FEED YOUR HORSE!
BTW, if anyone's looking for this study in the journals, it hasn't been
submitted yet, as we're still looking for other correlations in the data
we have. It'll be out probably next summer or so when we finally get
tired of playing games with the statistics programs. So, is this
newslist getting to be Cutting Edge or WHAT? :->
Susan Evans
California State Polytechnic University