A Study in Horse Tiredness and Recovery - Preventing Injury

Original article written by Regina Moore posted 10 years 3 weeks ago

After the first three articles in this series were published last week, I had a disturbing thought. What if some players quickly skimmed through them, and mostly noticed the first few sentences of the first article, and last few sentences of third article, where I emphasize that I feel most advice from players on how much rest horses need leans toward the unnecessarily ultra conservative? And, therefore, those players who might have been bored, started doing all sorts of activities with their horses, under the mistaken belief that it was difficult to injure them?

Ironically, there was a rash of injuries this past week, but I’m certain they had nothing to do with these articles; but instead, per The Steward’s recent forum post, a whole lot to do with the prolonged recent break, which messes with players’ heads (including mine), in terms of game time versus real time.

Nevertheless, I thought it would be a good idea to devote an entire article to very basic procedures (or lack of such) that should prevent horses from being injured. A reminder that, in over 20,000 starts, I’ve only had six horses injured due to trainer error, none being the career-ending bowed tendon, and with the last in Year 33.


THE FIRST TWO WEEKS AFTER A RACE
The only thing that you should do to a horse within the first week after a race is ship it to a farm. Doing anything else with a horse in that first week is asking for an injury.

By early in the second week (or even at the end of the first week), the horse might vet completely rested. That would mean that you could then exercise it, without injury. But why would you?

New players are given a Tip of the Day for their first couple of weeks, and I’ve had a player forward me each one, so I knew what newbies were being told. What I feel is the most crucial tip says:

"Horses only need exercise - such as a race - once every 14 days. So if your horse races on Week 1 Monday, it should be able to race again Week 3 Monday. If a horse is racing regularly, it doesn't need any extra exercise, such as galloping or jogging, which are more useful if the horse has been given time off. Too much exercise will end up in injury to the horse, which is expensive to you as the owner."

Note that third sentence – “If a horse is racing regularly, it doesn’t need any extra exercise….”

So, if you’re exercising a horse within two weeks of its last race, you’re likely, at best, just spinning your wheels and not doing anything useful for the horse. At worst, if you haven’t vetted the horse to make sure it’s fully recovered from its last race, you’re risking injury.

Granted, I walk my horses a week after a race, but that’s after they’ve had a full week of rest, and that’s intended to help them relax, not to give them exercise for fitness reasons.

I do like to give each horse a gallop every year, to see if the comment might have changed from the prior year. I wait to do this until the horse is getting a three-week break between races, and the gallop takes placed exactly 14 days since its last race. That way, the horse is fully rested from his last race, but it’s not too close to its next race.


FARM REST
Farm rest is a beautiful thing. In fact, I’m starting to believe that the FAQ on Farm Rest underplays just how important it is to having happy, healthy horses.

I’m wondering if the reason I have so few breakdowns, despite sometimes pushing the envelope with my horses (such as occasionally racing with just a week of rest), has less to do with walking and more to do with farm rest. I’m also starting to suspect that the sooner the horse is shipped to a farm after a race, the more beneficial it is. But I still need more data to work with before declaring that to be so.

Since I first started playing SIM, I have always shipped my horses to the nearest farm within a few hours – if not a few minutes – after they race. No matter how flustered I might be with my horses' poor performances, I dutifully go through the trouble of shipping them to a farm.

One Tip of the Day that’s given to newbies says:

“Shipping a horse to a farm after a race will help it recover more quickly. However, you can save money by staying at one track (Trial Park, Penny Pincher Park or Dropping Downs, for example), and just running every 2 weeks without shipping for farm rest.”

Unless one is genuinely on the edge of bankruptcy, I would not forego farm rest in the name of saving money. Shipping to the nearest farm is almost always going to cost $100, so $200 for a round trip, if the horse always races in the same region. An injury costs thousands, so injuries are a lot more financially troubling that short ships to and from a farm.

If you race lots of horses, or otherwise are finding shipping each horse to be an aggravation, you can use the “Home Location” feature, where you can set a horse’s home farm, and then just by clicking the shipping icon after a race, the horse will go to that farm. Also, one can, from their Racing Barn, ship multiple horses at once to a nearby farm. (This is especially convenient if you are a SIMperior player, and can sort your horses by current track that they’re at, etc.)

If you’ve seen any of the Steward’s forum comments on the recent injuries players have suffered, due to mistakes made because of the long break, note that she identifies a lack of farm rest as almost always a contributing factor to horses getting injured.

If you want happy, healthy horses, send them to a nearby farm immediately after each race, even when you feel that they aren’t worth the trouble or expense. Make sure it’s a farm with amenities (hot walker, swimming pool, etc.) which shouldn’t be a problem, because the vast majority of farms are equipped with amenities.


MARY WEATHER WANTS TO HELP
Pay attention to assistant trainer Mary Weather.

If you’ve decided you're going to, say, gallop a racehorse, pay attention to her comment *before* exercising the horse. When you click on “Train This Horse”, her normal comment is, “I am your assistant trainer at your service. I can give [horse] a timed workout or work her on other aspects of racing. Just choose what you want me to do and I will get right on it."

However, she might warn, “Be careful not to overwork or race your horses too much, or they might get hurt!” If you get this warning, then don’t exercise the horse!

Granted, when I group-walk horses exactly one week after their last start, sometimes a horse or two gets the above warning from Mary Weather. I will still proceed with the walk, because doing so has never harmed a horse being walked a full week since its last start. But, before the walk, I right-click on any horse that gets that warning message to open up his page, and in his notes I put that he might take longer to recover from exercise than most horses. (I should have more in-depth things to say about longer-recovering horses, as I gather data throughout the year.)


VET WHEN NECESSARY
When in doubt, pay the money to vet the horse, to make sure it’s rested before doing anything with it. In lieu of spending money, you can use the “cheap vet” alternative of jogging. The problem with jogging is that if the horse is still very tired before the jog, the jog might cause it to be injured.


When the above are second-nature to you as a player, you won’t have any problem with injuries. I speak from much experience.

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