The Zen Racehorse

One of the foundations of a sound horse is symmetry. Without it, compensations in the body can have profound effects on a horse’s soundness and performance.

The track at Churchill Downs isn’t breaking [completely sound] horses down, it’s telling on horses who are already broken down.

A horse’s bones are plastic. No, not made of plastic, but plastic by definition in that they are able to remodel to accommodate the stresses they face. When a horse is gradually introduced to higher and higher levels of stress (speed) the cannon bones actually change from the perfectly round (cross section) of a newborn foal to a more oblong shape, becoming quite oval shaped in the case of a mature racehorse.

Horses of yesteryear were trained in such a way to prepare them more thoroughly for the stresses of racing than the horses of today. In the (paraphrased) words of the late great Tom Ivers (author of The Fit Racehorse and many other marvelous works) ‘You can’t get what you don’t train for’...If horses only breeze moderate 1/2s and 5/8s miles, then what you’re left with is a horse who can safely run moderate 1/2s and 5/8 miles. Horses need to see racing speed and racing distances in the morning to prepare them for racing speed and distance in the afternoon. “You’ll break them down training like that” is the battle cry from those already breaking them down...the reason they believe this is because like so many other aspects of this industry, trainers want to count to 100 like this...One, two, skip a few, 99, 100...It is completely true that a horse will break down training like that IF they aren’t adequately prepared to do so (they’re already breaking down regularly because they aren’t) and adequately preparing them takes time and lots of it...something that seems to be in shortage in this industry. A base of conditioning through long (and I mean LONG to the tune of 6 daily miles) slow distance gradually increasing speed as the distance is shortened produces a horse with bones made of iron with muscles and lungs to match (horses trained like this DO NOT BLEED)

Adding injury (pun intended) to insult are the clown feet we ask our woefully unprepared horses to run on. Studies show that the forces on a horse’s SFDT AND DDFT are exponentially increased for every millimeter the breakover moves beyond the natural point located below the tip coffin bone. The epidemic of long toes and low heels seen at the track is the hinge point of a cascade of destruction. Many trainers at the track still hold to the fallacy that longer toes = longer stride. Racetrackers being not much for science ignore the slow motion footage proving that all long toes and low angles do is force the horse to pick his foot up slower and higher with each stride, effectively slowing him down. The added work of getting his snowshoes off the ground causes him to tire earlier, leading to soft tissue failure in epidemic levels.

Add to these travesties the weekly dose of calcium depleting Lasix most horse’s receive so they can breeze their measly 1/2 mile without their underdeveloped lungs hemorrhaging and you’re left with blood which must leach calcium from bones already too fragile to perform the task at hand.

Add to all of this wreckage the breeding of equine beauty queens made for the sales ring and not the racetrack and you’ve got the recipe for the disaster that is modern TB racing.

If you’re ready to see racing REALLY put the horses first, follow this page, The Zen Racehorse. We’re about to change the game from the inside out!