Fracture Resistance = X

Could consistent employment of a mathematical model breeze to breeze/race to race provide some educated guess work as to the condition of the cannon bones at any particular point in time? Post race, instead of standing before our horse and its warmly radiating cannons pondering in perplexity the question of "what next", might we instead refer to our notes and tablets, precisely analyze the recent history, and then calculate the probabilities concerning soundness or injury in future endeavors?

Unknown, whether we can do this of course, but I'm thinking were we to develop a consistent analysis over time we'd be far ahead of the "guess work by feel and experience" that most of us engage in day to day. Needless to say, if you want to look at my 1/23/09 post on trainer stats, the guess work being engaged in quite frequently goes awry.

So, possibly (we'll see) the end point of this discussion will be some sort of mathematical model, but first it's back to the beginning of the physiology to determine, if we develop a math model, what needs to be in the formula.

The posts on this blog over the last summer started this discussion and developed a theory of what we have to do to actually engage the cannon bone remodeling process. The conclusion was that race appropriate remodeling needs minimally breezes of 4f in :12.5s. Go shorter or slower, so the theory went, would fail to engage remodeling.

But, let's review and clarify for just a moment. The new reader might be thinking whether remodeling might be engaged by a series of 3f breezes in sub :12s. If you read those summer posts closely you will see that the speed and distance figures were arrived at by calculating the number of hoof strikes necessary to engage remodeling in any particular breeze. The speculation was that remodeling possibly is engaged as early as 2.5f if the horse is going fast enough, i.e. creating enough concussion with it's hoof strike. on this sort of analysis:

--Starting from hoof strike #1 how many strikes are necessary to sufficiently shake, pound, squeeze the bone materials for a remodeling reaction. The reaction begins immediately but we're looking for a race appropriate reaction and speculating this begins about 2.5f down the track.--

By 3f it was thought that in fact appropriate remodeling was probably happening BUT the 4f mark was used due to uncertainty. I.e. If we think that remodeling begins possibly at 2.5-3f, if we go 4f then we can be sure. Thus, we'd hope that remodeling takes place in 3f breezes, but to be safe we go 4f. Moreover, note that if remodeling begins only after 2.5f and we stop at 3f, we've engaged the process, but barely, and so we choose the safer 4f as the standard.

But, this should be further clarified by separating the concepts of "engaging the remodeling process" and "achieving fracture resistance". While 4f in :12.5 might get us remodeling nothing has been written to date that e.g. ten of such 4f breezes will get us to the state of fracture resistance. That is what we have to look at--how many and how to space them.

Training:
Thurs. 2/12: The Cody hitch has been installed in the truck. As soon as we can drag the trailer out of the mud we're off to Eureka Downs. Hopefully next week. After unbelievably good weather this year to 2/9/09 this week has been wet. The paddock track was usable for a tough riderless workout in deep mud. We went 25 minutes total in 2f spurts followed by short rests (to reduce pressure on check ligaments in the mud) 10 min. + 10 min. with a full 5 min. of rest in between. The horses were blowing when done. Decent considering conditions.