Cumulative Cannon Bone Damage

Cumulative cannon bone damage will at some point cause a fracture. We'd like to identify this in terms of the "breaking point" and also what each of us training horses might subjectively accept.

Illustrate the point in real time by putting our venerable trainer in front of his horse a day or so post breeze staring at those fragile, possibly still slightly warm cannons and fretting as to what might be the actual state of things. From personal experience I'll volunteer that the degree of concern is geometric if you're also the one scheduled on board next breeze.

For myself, I'd sure like to "know" instead of wild guesswork, that we may safely proceed.

This blog has postulated 1% bone cell damage per breeze cumulative with each cell healing in 30 days. We need to calculate that point were the bone is in trouble, and also that point (in terms of damage) that is acceptable to us.

First, where is the cannon in trouble? This calculation seems fairly straightforward to me. Let's look at Preston Burch as a trainer getting in as many breezes as probably is physically possible. Burch breezes every three days. I'd hate to think of anything more frequent than that over time.

10 breezes in 30 days as noted get us 14% bone cell damage, again noting, in various states of repair. Considering this, 14% has to the max. I think the old time trainers (theoretically--there are some explanations for survival which go outside the parameters of the discussion--these will be covered later) took their horses to the edge. Certainly Burch did this with Bold with some evidence he went over the cliff.

Put another way, I'm unable to imagine going on with a horse where I'd risk 15% or more cell damage. We also have to note here--since we postulate 30 day healing for the cells--that theoretically if Burch can get his horse through the 30 days that the horse would stay at the 14% damage instead of increasing the percent since the cells are healing. I'd avoid that chance.

So, for here 14% damage per Burch training is a threshold upper limit.

Having established that, again take a look at RR Rule #1 for training horses: "Never do anything with a horse unless you are 100% sure you can do it without injuring the horse".

RR Rule #1 postulates "certainty". With our fragile horse, if we want to survive the game, we must be sure of what we are doing.

How do we calculate a point of "certainty" with the animal so that we are 100% that we can go on? Consider this next post.

Training:
Tues. 9/23: After three days work the horses are off. An unpredicted near inch of rain this morn, but straight ahead tonight.