Re: RC: Re: Re: Time for a new motto

[CMKSAGEHIL@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/18/99 5:23:31 PM Pacific Standard Time, Tivers@aol.com 
writes:

<< Oh. Do you train these finish-is-to-win horses? First I've heard of it. >>

What, your never ending literature search let you down on this one?  Welcome 
to Real Life 101.  Time to tear yourself away from the books and see what's 
really happening out here.

<< Our average for Ivers-style-trained racehorses is about 36 miles for every 
 race mile--during the competitive season. More in the off season, of course, 
 when the conditioning  really takes place. Of course, even that is a drop in 
 the bucket compared to human training miles. When we get up to 180 to 240 
 miles a week, we'll be genuinely serious about conditioning horses as 
 athletes. >>

The relationship between training miles and competition miles is not linear.  
Kudos to you for actually making race horses fit--not enough do.  But--horses 
can also overtrain, too, with subsequent breakdown of the autonomic nervous 
system, etc.  Depending on the horse, you can easily keep him fit (yes, even 
for those winners, which I don't see any of us hating, BTW--and I've even 
ridden a few) with something in the range of 50-100 miles per week.  Less for 
some horses.  Once the horse gets far enough into his career, rest between 
competitions becomes increasingly important, too--and the competition miles 
"count" toward that weekly total.  And quite frankly, one thing that makes 
career multi-day horses so special is the fact that they CAN tolerate that 
mileage without falling apart--either biomechanically OR metabolically.

Heidi


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