Bone Post

Back to weighty questions, including bones, and then I stumble into this relevant gem, set up as usual by this author with numerous brilliant lines:

Hamlet: Might the noble dust of Alexander(the Great) be stopping a bung hole.

Horatio: "Twer to consider too curiously to consider so"

Blogging gone amuck possibly is considering a subject "too curiously" but regarding "fracture resistance, I'll try to soldier on.

A horse motoring down the track during a race focuses on the competition oblivious completely to the tremendous forces pinging into its legs with every audible hoof strike at great risk to itself. Perhaps you have stood by the 1/8th pole and listened to them, particularly on a day the track might have been fast. Even back in the day before I owned a horse and was there at Ak Sar Ben in mid summer trying to make a buck I wondered how the horses were standing up to what I was hearing as they galloped by. In my handicapping days I figured the trainers knew what they were doing. Ha.

So we consider what's happening in terms of physiology with the crackles of concussive force that occur as underside of each hoof at the heel just below the bulbs of the heel at the widest point of the frog strikes ground surface with all the force the horse can muster, and then in a millisecond the underside of the hoof twists slightly, rotates forward on its axis, and pushes off at the toe airborne into it's next stride.

The point of maximum impact likely occurs with the initial "hit" at the heel. This sends concussive shock waves straight up through the hoof, to pastern, fetlock, condylar process of the cannon, the length of the cannon itself, and on up to the knee. The hoof has hit, turned over, left ground, a moment of reprieve till the next hit, and all repeated 150-240 times during the course of the racing distance.

So, precisely how do these quick and repeated applications of considerable force, buffered as they go up the leg, affect the structure of the leg both at the macro and micro/nano structure level? This has been the focus of the blog for a couple of years--attempting to determine what happens for purpose of developing an exercise program that will develop fracture resistance (FR).

And so, next post, at risk of considering things too curiously, I can get back and focus on this subject.

Training:

Sat: June 12: got up this morning to get in the w/o before predicted rains. Walked out the door there it comes down the minute I get outside---at least another inch. Day is yet to be over and might get something in tonight.

Fri: June 11: off.

Thurs. June 10: 1.2m trot-gallop--50% fairly strong gallop + 5 x 4f riderless in mud at 85% speed with full recovery between heats.

Wed. June 9: 1.5m trot-slow gallop. 1/3 was gallop.