Revisiting Frequency

Here at RR.com we're under water once again, to re-echo a familiar theme. 3 more days of rain this week in cold, overcast weather will put our pasture track out of commission for another several days. I'll be posting soon on racing plans for this little stable which have gone depressingly awry primarily due to constant rain in KCMO.

For this post I will try to get back to the blog's main subject to date, which is injury prevention, to where I had left off, which is the question of frequency and how often we need to breeze/race a horse to achieve and maintain fracture resistance (FR).

My new strategy to get back on course with a difficult subject, is to "feel" my way back to were I was, and then hopefully some progress and a final conclusion.

In terms purely of "frequency" and how much the horse needs to work, this has been looked at in two ways: 1. trainer stats have been examined, and, for those trainers, their injury rates in view of what they're doing with their horses has been calculated, and 2. an analysis of the physiology involved in terms of frequency and fracture resistance.

I have yet to look at the important concept of detraining, and, really, had yet to complete the look at physiology when the blog bogged down a bit. Again, hopefully, things will get going here again.

The trainer stats will be revisited for they provide significant empirical evidence of how FR works in terms of frequency. If, e.g., this or that trainer does speed work every 9 days and those horses have a lower or higher than average rate of injury, presumably we may draw some conclusions.

But, first I want to take a final look at bone physiology and make whatever conclusions are possible based on what's been considered so far on the blog.

Training:
Wed. and Thurs. 10/21 and 22: Off due to 1.5 inches of rain.