Post Race/Breeze Remodeling X: Simplified Review

Pages and pages of fracture resistance posts on here. Some of them pretty good, if I do say so. The June 1 post attempted a to-date summary in detail. But now, a shorter summation hopefully in terms of what Mr. Trainer* (pictured) really needs to know.

This all starts with what happens within the cannon bone during the breeze. That alone involved weeks of posts. For anyone new, if your interested, what occurs during the event is put together here:

http://ratherrapid.blogspot.com/2009/02/remodeling-humanshorses.html

So, Mr. Trainer will be particularly aware that during the speed event something is going in the legs. This concept will be reinforced for most of them repeated over time as a certain fixed percentage of their horses limp off after the races almost as if scheduled. Something happened!

The inquiry on this blog has been that we might avoid most of these constant injuries by appropriate training, but then, what is "appropriate"?

To date the blog has estimated that Race Appropriate Fracture Resistance (FR) is got by the leg bones remodeling in response to exercise which exercise in turn must actually do the trick of getting us the FR.

Through a long torturous process of posts I surmised that, of the exercise variables of

speed
distance
frequency

that the speed events need to be minimally 4f at :12.5/sec/f to stimulate appropriate remodeling.

How often this needs to be done is the present focus, as we look at the most we can do without causing injury, and also the least. Right now we're looking at minimums.

And so, for Mr. Trainer, who by experience has an appreciation that during the race/breeze something is going on with the leg bones, there also NEEDS TO BE some understanding of the goings on after the event.

Just to illustrate this--for the longest period in my own training I had assumed that the post event cannon bone heat was primarily the result of (insignificant) micro fracturing on the canon bone surface, and that these small tears would fill up or heal over 2 to 3 days.

What I now believe happens, and what Mr. Trainer should know, after the event, while there is some diffuse micro damage for the appropriately trained horse, there are some positive processes going on in terms of bone remodeling that NEED TO BE REINFORCED within certain time periods OR THE BENEFIT WILL BE LOST.

So, "what the heck is that" asks Mr. Trainer. And, my answer would be that the event has compacted the bone materials, and that this compaction, with appropriate follow up exercise, will increase bone density over time.

"You mean", says Mr. Trainer, "that if I follow a certain formula in terms of exercise I will be able to increase density of the cannon bone?" "Yes, exactly", say I.

"So, tell me what I need to do!". And the response: "minimally you must do appropriate speed work within 8 days, and ideally on the 4th day. That is really, all you need to know!"

Now, for the new reader. I'm still looking at this, and what the exact time limits need to be in terms of exercise frequency. A comment on the interesting case of Dunkirk, next post.

*Pictured: Dutrow walking Big Brown

Training:
The horses were off yesterday due to buckets of rain. Art's gallop that we missed on the video was scheduled for 3 go around but was aborted after 2 as in the second heat, Art, despite attempted restraint, went so fast that he was a step or two ahead of his training. We followed Iver's advice that when your horse does something spectacular, what you do next is "nothing". Art's work Monday was nice enough I was a bit miffed we missed it on video. We did get a video of Rod, to be posted tomorrow, who did his 2.7 miles with an attempted spurt thrown in. Back at it this evening on wet ground.