Back to "Warming Up"
The last of the rain was in and out this morning. I'm fairly excited about the month ahead as I usually am when the horses are on the verge of race training. Given a little good weather now we should be making rapid progress, and hopefully the blog will take a little turn to actual Derby prep, which is what I originally set out to do. So, after a lot of digression, I'm back on subject with a post started some time ago as follows:
Decided that I tried too hard for this post to make it interesting. It's really straight exercise physiology and so well beyond my meager capabilities to present a scintillating discussion. So, out the window with a brilliant post on the subject of warming up, and so, let's present the bare bones and then move on to the rest of "how training affects injuries".
Way back when I posted differences in warming up for Japanese grass races and how they do it here in this country. Just as a refresher, in the Jap race I witnessed the jocks were without ponies, were alternately spaced on the inside and outside rail warming up their mounts by intermittent galloping-trotting often up to a two minute pace. I observed that however the horses trained, when shot out of the gate they were ready to go.
Unlike in the USA. Of course this latter is my own subjective observation which I'll temper a bit as the reader will see later. If the Japs find it necessary to do extensive galloping how do our trainers get by with a minute or so of cantering, a little trot and then walking to get in line for the ten minutes pre-race?
The answer is simple, and I'll present it without statistics. But first, slightly rephrase the question: Does the manner of warming up have any effect on either performance or injury prevention? Judging from the traditional American pre-race warm up and the attitude or non attitude toward it, you'd think not. I had posted Woody Stephen's observations as to how ponies came to be used because the jocks were "too tired" to deal with their horses otherwise.
Of course that the warm up is without affect on performance or injury prevention is nonsense. Every athlete who is other than a trainer of horses knows this. Personally, without looking at any study--presuming there are any--I'd estimate the number of horses injured due to inadequate or inappropriate pre-race warm up to be in the neighborhood of "countless". Similarly, the number of races lost, or inexplicably poor performances, or underachieving which can be laid flat out at the hands of some dumb jock-pony rider combo and a mindless, clueless trainer who let's it all happen would, if we could count them, numb the brain.
It is very common for me to watch a race and feel sorry for this or that horse who I know to be badly trained or warmed up as I see the gallant animal giving it its all without any sense of the stupefying nature of it's training until it hits that proverbial wall so far short of what it might otherwise be capable. I always just hope the wall comes before the breakdown.
Warming up correctly is part of intelligent training. It starts with basic physiology concerning how to get into performance, boot up the body, so to speak, both to optimize performance and prepare the little molecules for the stressful event to come. I'll get into the physiology of the warm up and how it relates to horses next post.
Training:
6/1/07 Friday: abscess
6/2/07 Sat: I waited 24 hrs. to treat the abscess. I'll avoid another dissertation on the subject, which appears elsewhere on the blog, simply to note the treatment here. At 24 hrs we put the hoof in a Davis Boot with Epsom salt paste and hope for the 50% (with this treatment) of the time this resolves the abscess. Indeed by 6/3 Sunday, the horse was walking in his boot without a limp. I'll wait till Monday when it will be a little drier to re-shoe, and we should be back at it Tues missing four days since the last w/o Thurs. That would qualify well for working around this abscess which was at quarters on the left front.
Decided that I tried too hard for this post to make it interesting. It's really straight exercise physiology and so well beyond my meager capabilities to present a scintillating discussion. So, out the window with a brilliant post on the subject of warming up, and so, let's present the bare bones and then move on to the rest of "how training affects injuries".
Way back when I posted differences in warming up for Japanese grass races and how they do it here in this country. Just as a refresher, in the Jap race I witnessed the jocks were without ponies, were alternately spaced on the inside and outside rail warming up their mounts by intermittent galloping-trotting often up to a two minute pace. I observed that however the horses trained, when shot out of the gate they were ready to go.
Unlike in the USA. Of course this latter is my own subjective observation which I'll temper a bit as the reader will see later. If the Japs find it necessary to do extensive galloping how do our trainers get by with a minute or so of cantering, a little trot and then walking to get in line for the ten minutes pre-race?
The answer is simple, and I'll present it without statistics. But first, slightly rephrase the question: Does the manner of warming up have any effect on either performance or injury prevention? Judging from the traditional American pre-race warm up and the attitude or non attitude toward it, you'd think not. I had posted Woody Stephen's observations as to how ponies came to be used because the jocks were "too tired" to deal with their horses otherwise.
Of course that the warm up is without affect on performance or injury prevention is nonsense. Every athlete who is other than a trainer of horses knows this. Personally, without looking at any study--presuming there are any--I'd estimate the number of horses injured due to inadequate or inappropriate pre-race warm up to be in the neighborhood of "countless". Similarly, the number of races lost, or inexplicably poor performances, or underachieving which can be laid flat out at the hands of some dumb jock-pony rider combo and a mindless, clueless trainer who let's it all happen would, if we could count them, numb the brain.
It is very common for me to watch a race and feel sorry for this or that horse who I know to be badly trained or warmed up as I see the gallant animal giving it its all without any sense of the stupefying nature of it's training until it hits that proverbial wall so far short of what it might otherwise be capable. I always just hope the wall comes before the breakdown.
Warming up correctly is part of intelligent training. It starts with basic physiology concerning how to get into performance, boot up the body, so to speak, both to optimize performance and prepare the little molecules for the stressful event to come. I'll get into the physiology of the warm up and how it relates to horses next post.
Training:
6/1/07 Friday: abscess
6/2/07 Sat: I waited 24 hrs. to treat the abscess. I'll avoid another dissertation on the subject, which appears elsewhere on the blog, simply to note the treatment here. At 24 hrs we put the hoof in a Davis Boot with Epsom salt paste and hope for the 50% (with this treatment) of the time this resolves the abscess. Indeed by 6/3 Sunday, the horse was walking in his boot without a limp. I'll wait till Monday when it will be a little drier to re-shoe, and we should be back at it Tues missing four days since the last w/o Thurs. That would qualify well for working around this abscess which was at quarters on the left front.
posted by rather rapid at
11:26 AM
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