Vector Forces At The Breeze

Our youngster motors down the track quite easily, giving us an illusion of invincibility and strength. As the horse moves we're considering, as a matter of course, what's happening within the bone structure even as we may for the moment be distracted by the grace and speed of our horse.

What's happening to those cannon bones can be illustrated easily by a simple experiment that anyone can conduct, as follows:

Put on a pair of soft running shoes and go out for a brisk walk. As you walk begin concentrate on your tibia. You will feel immediately a surprising amount of force operating with each and every one of your strides. With myself I feel the largest amount of force just below knee cap which emanates on down as I swing through the walk. At the same time I feel a lighter force at the ankle which seems to move up and coalesce with what's coming down from the knee. Again, you will be surprised at the amount of this force.

In consideration of this we think of what's going on in the cannon bone of our speeding horse. I have trouble imagining this since supposedly the force exerted is three times the force on human leg bones at speed (4000 lbs/sq. inch in humans; 12,000 lbs./sq. inch in the horse.)

But there's something else to consider also, which is that the "amount" of the force is only one factor that plays on the atoms/molecules/cells of the cannon bone. When force hits, we also have operating the vector, direction, and intensity of the force, as in the puppy illustrations above. 12,000 lbs. per square inch will differ in effect depending whether said force is applied head on or at an angle, and also whether after application the leg remains stationary or immediately begins to swing through a stride. In this regard the nature, shape and speed of the stride will also affect the degree of force applied on any single molecule of the the bone.

Interestingly, in terms of the moving horse the application of force might differ in a horse with an efficient, graceful stride (see Big Brown) as opposed to a chop chop stride, or, significantly, in a tiring horse that loses its action.

Complex, but stuff we need to be aware of in imagining, per last post, what's happening in this process at the molecular level. I'll try tomorrow to combine the thoughts of the these last two posts as to what exactly happens to the bone tissue at the mollecular level during the breeze.

Training:
Sun 7/6 After yesterday's speed work, Art trotted a mile under tack and Rod walked 5f under tack.
Mon. 7/7 both horses galloped 1.5 miles riderless after warm up. Art then trot-galloped 1.25 miles under tack. The gallops in this were very short as Mr. Nob (the rider) attempts to get this youngster under control at the gallop. No bucking today in the first gallop in a week, but still having a lot of trouble getting the left lead. The horse is responding well to rein work though in terms of changing his diagonal at the trot. Rod does his first trotting under tack which makes 7/7/08, I'm supposing, a significant day for Rod.
Tues. 7/8 the planned speed work gets rained out, again. Atypical wet weather for our area continues.