ridecamp@endurance.net: Re: carrying weight

Re: carrying weight

Rob & Kathy Dobrowsky (arikaras@iafrica.com)
Sat, 20 Sep 1997 07:59:09 +0200

Hi to all out there,
I've been following this discussion with interest. The Endurance Riding
Association of South Africa has in it's data bank all the entries from 1974
of all rides that have taken place in this country.The data includes
information on every ride ridden since then, with particulars about every
horse such as age, gender, time and speed for every leg of the ride, pulse
rate, age and weight of the rider, success rate attained at every ride,
etc.
I'll quote from our 1996 endurance handbook." Mass vs Speed. Over the years
there was enthusiastic and at times heated debates regarding the
correlation between weight ( of rider ) and speed (of the horse ) in in
endurance riding.Figure 2 shows that there is a definite negative
relationship between the two variables. This implies that, generally
speaking, a horse that carries a lighter weight eg 73kg has a much better
chance of winning a ride than one carrying a burden of say 120kg."
I'll try and get the graph on here, i'm not sure that i'll be able to
though. The other interesting statistic that we have here is the
correlation between weight and best condition, but that is an entirley
diffirent subject.
Sorry i'm not going to be able to get that graph on here now, i'll have to
work on it, but what it clearly shows is that the heavier the rider, the
slower the average speed.
Enjoy the riding, on the opposite side of the world,
Rob & Kathy.

----------
> From: K S Swigart <katswig@deltanet.com>
> To: Tina Hicks <hickst@nichols.com>
> Cc: ridecamp@endurance.net
> Subject: Re: carrying weight
> Date: Saturday, September 20, 1997 7:00 AM
>
>
>
> On Fri, 19 Sep 1997, Tina Hicks wrote:
>
> > Regarding the weight discsussion, does the weight a horse loses during
a
> > race factor at all into his ability to handle the load from beginning
to end
> > of the day? Or is that loss insignificant to the overall load?
>
> Since a horse will lose between 50 and 100 lbs during the course of a
> ride, one would assume that if weight were a factor, that this amount of
> weight would not be considered insignificant;
>
> however, since all the horses are going to be losing weight during the
> ride.
>
> Additionally, it is likely that the weight that a horse loses duirng the
> course of a ride is much more useful than mere dead weight. I would not
> recommend trying to reduce your horse's weight load by managing him in
> such a way that he loses more weight during the ride:) (since most of
this
> weight is water weight).
>
> Race horse handlers, however, make a point of not watering their horses
> too soon before a race as a bucket full of water is not something that
you
> want your racehorse carrying around the racetrack with him.
>
> kat
>

Home Events Groups Rider Directory Market RideCamp Stuff