A Study in Horse Tiredness and Recovery - WK 2 Observations

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

We'll start out this week talking about horses actually racing.


RECOVERY AFTER A RACE
The first 10 days of Year 38 saw quite a few of my study horses running races. All but one were immediately shipped afterward to the closest farm with amenities.

Most horses that shipped to farms, regardless of age or breed (and that includes a 7yo Paint), had the same recovery cycle: They were Level 1 "tired" for three days after their race. Then they were Level 2 “recovering” for the next two days. The sixth day after their race, they were Level 3 “almost recovered”. The seventh day, they were Level 4 fully rested.

So, this explains why you can get away with racing a horse on just one week of rest, if you’ve sent it to a farm shortly after its prior race. But what remains to be seen is how racing seven days apart affects the horse’s time of recovery after that second race.

I was quite surprised that one Thoroughbred recovered a day ahead of the others – in other words, he was Level 4 just six days after his race, rather than seven. He spent only two days at Level 1, rather than three days. What’s most interesting about this horse is that he’s a 3yo dirt router. While just being one example, I think this goes a long way toward debunking the myth that it takes routers longer than sprinters to recover from their races.

Furthermore, the above horse is one that I’d given a 5f workout eight days prior to his race. It took him the standard four days to recover from the work, which put him at Monday before his Friday race. On Tuesday, he had a $360 ship from California to Hawaii. I neglected to vet him right after that ship, but on Wednesday he was fully rested at Level 4. He got the usual walk I do two days before his race that same Wednesday (which I tend to suspect is rather unnecessary, but I’ve always thought it might help horses recover from the ship the day before.) When he raced on Friday, it was his third career start, and he broke his maiden. Considering how godawful pathetic my homebred dirt routers and turf routers tend to be, that was no small accomplishment.

One horse that raced this past week is taking a long time to recover. Guess which one? The hapless horse that I chose to experiment with, so I hadn’t shipped him to a farm after his race on Friday Week 1. As of this writing, the following Thursday, he’s *still* at a Level 1 tired. All the farm rest horses were at a Level 3 or Level 4 six days after their last race. I’ll update this guy's progress next week. In the meantime… does anyone really need any further proof regarding the benefits of farm rest?


ACCUMULATED ACTIVITY
Last week, I mentioned that I had to lunge a rested yearling four times in a row, before I finally got it to drop to a Level 3 “almost recovered”. He was back to Level 4 the next day. After two days of inactivity, I lunged the yearling again. This time, despite starting out at Level 4 as he had before, it only took a second lunging to drop to Level 3. The next day, he was recovered to Level 4. But when I lunged him the following day, he dropped to Level 3 after just one lunge. Following two days of inactivity, I lunged him some more, and it took a second lunge to get him to drop to a Level 4, as though those two days of rest had been helpful to his overall recovery.

Lunging is such a soft exercise, that it’s difficult to get dramatic results. But this is the beginning of what I suspect will prove to be true – that even when a horse starts out at a fully rested Level 4, how quickly he tires from exercise will be influenced by accumulated prior activity.

Like lunging, gate training and paddock schooling seem to take almost nothing out of horses (the yearlings, at least), so one can do them multiple times in the same day, with a negligible effect on tiredness. I did a combination of gate and paddock training for two days, with three trainings each day, and the yearling still remained at a Level 4, throughout those six trainings. Finally, on the third day, after getting a Level 4 with a lunge, the horse dropped to a Level 2 after a gate training immediately following the lunge, and was still a Level 2 when I swam him immediately after. With no activity the next day, he was still a Level 2, then moved to Level 3 the following day, and then was fully rested the third day of no activity. I did something similar with a second yearling, in terms of doing three “soft” trainings each day, for a few days in a row, and the three-day recovery after the third day of multiple exercise was similar.

So, while this is another demonstration (as with galloping last week) that accumulated exercise can take a horse longer to recover than it would from being allowed to rest between each exercise, it also shows that it can take a lot to tire out a yearling, in the first place, when it comes to these soft exercises. But then, none of these yearlings have yet had the stress of workouts, so we’ll have to wait to see how getting regularly timed works might impact recovery from a simple gate training or jog.


ACCUMULATED REST
Last week, I mentioned that it took horses two days to recover from a single gallop, provided the horse was fully rested at the time of the gallop. Therefore, I was quite surprised when I galloped a rested 3yo turf sprinter, and while he did the expected drop to Level 2 immediately after the gallop, he had fully recovered to Level 4 the very next day. This fast recovery might be explained by him being a horse that simply needs a shorter rest after exercise. Or it might have something to do with the fact that I’ve done absolutely nothing with him since he last raced Friday Week 15, beyond walking him the following week.

If tiredness can accumulate in horses that are continually exercised, even if fully rested between exercises, can horses then also accumulate rest, so that one Level 4 horse with a lot more rest than another Level 4 horse recovers faster from exercise, as though that extra rest is stored up? This idea is something I’m keeping an eye out for.


THE OTHER EXERCISES
I have done little with jogging and swimming, but it appears that tiredness from jogging is negligible, and I can only get a horse to drop a vet level if the jog is combined with additional exercise that same day.

Swimming seems slightly more tiring. A horse will usually drop to a Level 3 after a swim, and will then be a fully recovered Level 4 the next day.

I’ve only ponied a horse once, so far. He immediately dropped to a Level 2. He was level 3 the next day, and then fully rested the day after that. If this recovery rate holds for other horses, then that puts ponying on the same recovery scale as galloping.


THIS WEEK’S BROAD TENTATIVE CONCLUSIONS
When horses are shipped to a farm the same day as their race (assuming they were fully rested before the race), they will be returned to a fully rested Level 4 within seven days.

When horses remain at the track following a race, they will still be Level 1 (“tired”) six days following the race.

Age or type of horse doesn’t appear to have any influence on how quickly it recovers from a race.

Pending further study, below is my ranking of available exercises, from most tiring (in terms of number of days to recover) to least tiring. This is assuming the horse is fully rested before undertaking the exercise. I suggest allowing a day in either direction of the norm, for any particular individual horse.

Timed workout (4 days to recover)

Galloping, Ponying (2 days)

Swimming (1 day)

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


Next time, I intend to put a more detailed spotlight on the effects of a long ship versus a short ship, and multiple ships between races, versus a single ship.

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