A Study in Horse Tiredness and Recovery - WK 6 Observations

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

THE TRACK RESTED HORSE
There was one horse that I had raced Week 1 Friday, and chose to not send him to a farm. He was at Level 1 for six days following the race. He was Level 2 for three days, and then Level 3 for one day, and fully rested Level 4 the eleventh day after the race. So, he took a little longer than what it takes farm rested horses to recover from a race. Perhaps most importantly, that extra time was spent at Level 1.

So, while one can correctly argue that a horse that stays at the track can still race every two weeks, It’s apparent to me that those horses are much more vulnerable to injury during those two weeks. In other words, if you end up wanting to ship it to a different track farther away for a race, or accidentally gallop it, etc., there’s a larger window for the horse to get injured than with a farm-rested horse.


MARY WEATHER AND TIREDNESS WITHIN TIREDNESS
I mentioned in my prior article on preventing injuries that Mary Weather can be helpful, in that she can give a warning of not to exercise a horse too much. That’s a warning I would pay attention to, and I wouldn’t proceed with exercising the horse.

For some of my horses that had just raced, and were therefore Level 1 tired, I went into their training page each day to see what comment I would get from Ms. Weather. What I’m finding is that she only gives the warning the first few days at Level 1, but not the last two days. In other words, if a horse is at Level 1 for four days, she’ll warn you the first two days to not exercise the horse too much, but the last two days, she’ll give her normal comment of doing whatever you want her to do. If the horse is at Level 1 for three days, she’ll only warn the first day, but not the next two. If the horse is at Level 1 for six days, she’ll give you the warning for four days, but not the fifth and sixth day.

So, this would suggest that she’s aware of a level of recovery, two days before the horse improves to Level 2, that Dr. Hacklu isn’t. I would assume that a horse that has the warning would be likely to be injured if one does any exercise with it. Perhaps, the final two days at Level 1, the horse is out of the woods, in terms of being vulnerable to injury. But I’ve never wanted to risk deliberately breaking down any of my horses to test such speculation.

When I first started this experiment, I thought that the vet did indeed have two tiredness levels, which I called Exhausted and Tired. I kept getting the same comments for Exhausted horses, and a different set of comments for Tired horses, though I was starting to suspect they were the same level, based upon the wording of the comments. Then, a few days into it, I finally had a horse to get a comment from both levels at the same time (ie, with repeated vetting in a single session), which proved they were the same level. Yet, ironically, now it’s looking like there’s more tired and less tired, so to speak, for Level 1 horses.


PILING ON TIREDNESS
Wednesday of Week 4, I accidentally ran a 3yo Appaloosa sprinter on one week of rest. On race day, he vetted only at a Level 2, and it was too late to scratch. I wasn’t worried about injury, since I’m pretty convinced that Level 2 horses are less likely to be injured. He ran third in a field of four and, indeed, wasn’t injured. After the race, however, he spent eight days at Level 1. He wasn’t a fully recovered Level 4 until Monday of Week 6. So, even though he was shipped to the farm shortly after his race, he took nearly two weeks to recover.

This is strong demonstration of how tiredness accumulates, and how much longer a recovery can be when one does activity with a horse that wasn’t allowed to fully recover from its last activity. Certainly, nothing is more strenuous an activity than a race.


LEVEL 3
There are only two vet comments for what I call “Almost Recovered”, which is Level 3. One says the horse “should be okay tomorrow” and the other the horse “should be fine tomorrow”. Thus far, these comments have proven to be accurate 100% of the time. I’ve never known a Level 3 horse to not be at fully rested Level 4 the next day, as long as they aren’t given anything else to do (see below). One of the two comments suggests that the horse be walked around the shedrow, but as I’ve mentioned in the past, the horse is always fully recovered the next day, regardless of whether or not I walked him.


So, in my opinion, if you get a Level 3 vet comment, you can save yourself the expense of vetting the next day, and trust that the horse will be fully rested.


MORE ON JOGGING
For one Level 3 horse, I jogged him to see what comment I would get. I got “ready for more work or a race”, which a fully rested Level 4 horse would also get. However, the act of jogging then dropped that horse to Level 2. The next day, he was back to Level 3 and then, of course, Level 4 the following day.
When jogging a fully rested horse, it drops to only Level 3, if at all, and then is recovered the next day.


REVISITING PONYING
In a prior article I mentioned that I had ponied one horse (a horse of racing age), and it dropped two level 2, and took two days to recover, which put ponying on the same level as galloping.

Since, then, however, I’ve ponied some yearlings, and vetted three of them. They all dropped only to Level 3 after the ponying, and were fully rested the next day. So, this puts ponying more in line with swimming, as far as how much it takes out of a horse. That makes sense, since ponying is, essentially, galloping without a rider, and would presumably not be as strenuous as galloping with a rider.


UPDATED RECOVERY HIERARCHY
As always, this assumes that the horse was fully rested before undertaking the activity, and a variation of a day should be allowed for any particular individual horse.

Timed workout (4 days to recover)

Galloping, Schooling over Fences (2 days)

Swimming, Ponying (1 day)

Jogging (0-1 day)

Lunging, gate training, paddock schooling, walking (0 days)


I probably won’t do another article in this series for a while. I want to see how horses get more tired (or not) when racing through the season, and doubt I’ll see much noteworthy until later in the year. In the meantime, a race appears to take most horses seven to nine days to recover from, if they’re sent to a farm after their race.

I also am monitoring yearlings, as they begin weekly workouts for equipment, to see if they’ll still be able to recover within four days, even after a long series of timed works.

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