Frequency Conclusions

Horses need do speed work for race appropriate fracture resistance. This all agree to. How often, is the question. Plecher style training? Preston Burch? Somewhere in between? Or, will any of this do?

The blog has looked at:

1. Circumstantial evidence--individual trainer exercise protocols, and trainer injury avoidance success rates. Summary here:

http://ratherrapid.blogspot.com/2009/01/trainer-summariesa-continuing-post.html

2. Bone physiology, which has been posted on ad nauseum.

Query whether what the circumstantial evidence shows will jive with conclusions concerning physiology! While we already know that speed work every 4 days, to the extent that is possible by an exercise program, will keep the horse sound, the inquiry here is as to minimums--what is the least amount in terms of frequency that is necessary? Is it every 3 days (Burch); every 4 days (Ivers); every 5 days (probably yours truly); every 6 days (Dutrow); every 7 days (Plecher, Frankel); every 8 days; every 9 days (Zito, Lukas and their ilk); or more (Mr.and Ms. conventional trainer).

First, what may we conclude from bone physiology. There are all sorts of caveats there including lack of any equine research short of Nunnamaker and his Maryland Shin study. After a too close a look on this blog, I will now add my suppositions. After that will see how this correlates with the trainers stats.

The first thing I ran into in the way of conclusions concerned Nunnamaker's trainer, Frank somebody, forgot the name. Nunnamaker and Frank decided the shin research pointed to doing speed work every 5 days, and Frank tried this with 30 or so youngsters with very good results. Unfortunately they declined to outline what happened to these horses in their racing careers, probably because the results were predictably terrible. Why? Because our trainers agree to do a program hardly means they really know what they are doing.

Nevertheless, the 5 days thing coming from Nunnamker's work is interesting. My own work pointed fairly early concerning the bone glue and compactive processes resulting from speed work to believing that there was some positive effect all the way to 8 days out from the original speed work. This conclusion dealt with only two of the identified processes, all of which are summarized below:

contraction/compaction (increase density) of the mineral lattice

increase in bone glue proteins that hold everything together

adherence between some fibrils creating a stronger structure

realignment of fibrils/osteons and rearrangement of materials in optimum directions.

speed up of calcification/ossification/cell repair due to heat and dilation of circulatory structures,

Post race--a bounce back effect to pre-race conditions. We want to retard this bounce backwith timely subsequent speed work.

Each of the above was looked at in terms of how frequency of speed work would effect the particular process. These conclusions will now be summarized, next post.

Training:

Fri. 11/19 Off.

Sat. 11/20 36 hours after the 5 mile thing on Thurs: Tack work. Spook alert today which was hardly helped two dear rustling through the woods right beside the horse early, and--Mr. Nob miscalculates number of heats. Believe we wound up with 3 times, instead of 4, up and down the hill. Nob decides to call it after a second minor spook and duck in full gallop. Fastest in about :17s as the ground was too wet for speed work. The riderless work then was also aborted as the horses managed to escape the paddock. Nob forgot to tie the gate, and our 15 year old escape expert spotted it. No catching 'em then. We received the horse version of the fickle finger of fate as they galloped away. Did manage to get in 2 or 3 1f full speed bursts and one nice 4f burst in slippery mud before the escape. Off tomorrow to pick up the new car.