David Nunamaker Bone Study

[Bast]

Male line descent of the top ten stallions in the study.

Phalaris
……Pharos
…………Nearco
………………Nasrullah
……………………Bold Ruler
…………………………Boldnesian
………………………………Bold Reasoning
……………………………………Super Concorde
…………………………………………Concorde Bound
………………………………………………Concorde’s Tune 1989 (1) (23.33)
……………………………………Seattle Slew
………………………………………………Slew City Slew 1984 (2) (22.10)
……………………Red God
…………………………Blushing Groom
………………………………Mt Livermore
……………………………………Peaks and Valleys 1992 (5) 20.92
………………Nearctic
……………………Northern Dancer
…………………………Danzig
………………………………Outflanker 1994 (3) (20.99)
………………………………Chief’s Crown
……………………………………Concerto 1994 (7) (20.71)
…………………………Storm Bird
………………………………Storm Cat
……………………………………Catienus 1994 (4) (20.98)
……………………………………Sea of Secrets 1995 (6) (20.75)
…………………………Nijinsky
………………………………Sky Classic 1987 (9) (20.60)
………………Royal Charger
……………………Turn-to
…………………………Hail to Reason
………………………………Halo
……………………………………Devil’s Bag
…………………………………………Devil His Due 1989 (8) (20.65)
……Sickle
…………Unbreakable
………………Polynesian
……………………Native Dancer
…………………………Raise a Native
………………………………Mr Prospector
……………………………………Not for Love 1990 (10) (20.35)

[griff]

great post Bast

g

[Bast]

great post Bast

g

I put it there for Louis. He sometimes has problems with the obvious.

[ratherrapid]

was hoping somebody would post the name of a trainer. Instead of the midwest, is there one in the USA?

As to bone, my take would be that bone is bone. bone has developed it's characteristics over the hundreds of millions of years and for horses over the last 25 million. doubting that lab analysis would find much difference between bone cell construction between a draft horse or a TB or between Mr. Prospector and Norther Dancer, Darley Turk or a deer.

I do believe there are heritable conformation traits that affect soundness that are other than bone, and likely have to do with weight, size and leg proportion in relation to weight and size. But primarily my take would be that TB soundness is environmental from the date of conception in that exercised mares and afterward exercised foals experiencing appropriate nutrition likely have healthy foals with better distributed Type I bone collagen.

The trainer problem, as I call it, is the most difficult owner problem. Short of being able to supply a name that practices basic equine exercise physiology on the race track--and things are improving on that scope in response to competition--my thoughts are to walk the shed rows at the race track. Generally if you know anything about horses "and" exercise you can spot out questionable trainers by look and appearance of their horses which will look like unexercised stall babies. At training centers th deal is to make sure your horse is actually performing the program agreed upon. I'd be insisting on a web cam and daily feed back.

I always looked for a trainer I could supervise since I learned early on you can trust 'em about as much as the average used car salesman. If you've got $$$ put your own employee in the shed row.. If you lack $$$ find one that will let your work your program with a particular rider. Riders in general will give you honest feed back and tell you if your horse is in fact seeing the race track. I'd be insisting those breezes be webcamed and emailed.

[Shammy Davis]

Aurora posted:

. . . I am looking for a trainer in the mid-west who is aware of this "technology" and practices it in their training of young horses. Do any of the forum members know of trainers that do this and can recommend one?

Bill Pressey is an equine physiologist. I've seen a Pdf titled The Ideal 2 Year Old Training Program based on Nunamaker's shin study he wrote. He has a blog listed on his profile page and this site is
http://www.horsetrainingscience.blogspot.com/
but I think it has moved to
http://thoroedge.wordpress.com/
He is a member of this board and you might want to PM him for some recommendations. Below is his profile page.

http://www.pedigreequery.com/forum/prof ... le&u=89522

Ratherrapid is right. Trying to think of a trainer who you can actually identify as following the Nunamaker recommendations is quite a challenge. I would not be surprised to find out that Graham Motion and trainers of his caliber train as Nunamaker suggests, but I have no idea how you would go about finding one in the mid-west. I apologize the thread got off on a tangent. I for one lost sight of what the thread was about. I apologize. Try Bill Pressey and I'll bet he knows of some trainers that will fit the bill for you.

[Shammy Davis]

Aurora: Here is the article I mentioned in the previous post.

http://thoroedge.wordpress.com/2010/08/ ... g-program/

[Shammy Davis]

Have you seen this?

http://animalscience.tamu.edu/images/pd ... ciples.pdf

[xfactor fan]

Xenophon, the Greek general that wrote the first book on both horse training and dog training, used wind sprints in training young horses. And this was in a time where the fitness of your horse (or your army horses) was a matter of life and death.

The technique has been around for a long time.

Grif Apples and Oranges. Unsoundness due to "soft bones" the Stallion of Doom theory, and unsoundess due to bad knees are two different things. Bad knees could be a developmental problem, genetic problems, or simply having mis-matched conformation.

If you could pick up a copy of Budinsky's "The Nature of Horses" there's a chapter on the bio-mechanics of speed. He goes into a bit of technical detail, but in short, one way to increase speed is to lighten the weight of the leg from knee to hoof. The lower the weight, the faster the forearm can move the entire leg. And this tends to translate into increased speed. Nature has already done a good job with this process--there's not a lot in a horse leg but bone, tendon and the blood supply.

In breeding for speed, humans are selecting for low weight bone below the knee.

Anyone know what kind of knees Mr. Prospector had? He was very fast, but didn't race all that long.

[Monsun]

Xenophon, the Greek general that wrote the first book on both horse training and dog training, used wind sprints in training young horses. And this was in a time where the fitness of your horse (or your army horses) was a matter of life and death.

The technique has been around for a long time.

Grif Apples and Oranges. Unsoundness due to "soft bones" the Stallion of Doom theory, and unsoundess due to bad knees are two different things. Bad knees could be a developmental problem, genetic problems, or simply having mis-matched conformation.

If you could pick up a copy of Budinsky's "The Nature of Horses" there's a chapter on the bio-mechanics of speed. He goes into a bit of technical detail, but in short, one way to increase speed is to lighten the weight of the leg from knee to hoof. The lower the weight, the faster the forearm can move the entire leg. And this tends to translate into increased speed. Nature has already done a good job with this process--there's not a lot in a horse leg but bone, tendon and the blood supply.

In breeding for speed, humans are selecting for low weight bone below the knee.

Anyone know what kind of knees Mr. Prospector had? He was very fast, but didn't race all that long.

A link to a website with a Mr. Prospector picture:
http://www.nctfarm.com/Legends.html

[Laurierace]

I followed that protocol for more years than I can remember and had lots of luck with it. I hadn't had a shin in forever with one exception. As with anything you do need to tailor it to the horse, there is no one thing fits all when it comes to dealing with individuals. It's a very fine line you must walk but the closer you get to that line without going over the better so you have to be on the lookout for signs you are doing too much.

[Blowin Smoke]

Have you seen this?

http://animalscience.tamu.edu/images/pd ... ciples.pdf

I was going to post this link as well, and recently read Bill Pressey's blog, which is what lead me to this board actually. Let me begin by saying in a QH person (I know, I know, shake your head LOL), but I pride myself in being a very good, versatile, educated horseman. I have competed successfully in everything from jumpers to barrel horses, and trained barrel horses for many years, and recently got involved with track horses in the last couple of years. I hired a trainer my first year so I could get my feet wet, and I was SHOCKED at how little my horse was exercised and how any trainer could expect her to compete at the level being asked WITHOUT injury. She looked great and felt great (part of which I know was not natural), but she wasn't fit. Or wasn't fit to my standards. I have seen countless QH's break down or have career ending injuries that I think could be lessened with proper conditioning. I'm not so naive to think that injuries don't happen to track horses, or to think that some horses do suffer catastrophic injuries, but I do believe that the frequency with which we see them can be lessened with better conditioning. Conditioning that prepares the horse for race day, so that on race day, the horse has already worked up to that distance at that speed and their body is prepared for it.

I brought my filly home, and I called everyone I could to educate me, and what i've found is that many of the trainers I have seen do things a certain way because that's they way so and so did it before, and then so and so before him. There has been nobody step outside of the box in this industry around here for a very long time. I have trained barrel horses with a heart monitor for years, and continued to use it on my track filly when I got her home. I was even more disappointed when her fatigue was measured that way. My futurity colts were fit and sound! They lived like horses, they weren't idiots to handle, and they were happy. So, long story short, I have decided to try to do this myself. She's a cheap quarter horse, and i'm not a race horse trainer, but I AM a horse man. I'm going to test for my license, and play with this filly this fall, and see what happens. I may be naive and overly confident in my abilities, but one thing I do know is that my horse will show up physically prepared. This is a hobby for me, I have a full time job, and I expect to take some criticism, but the QH industry around me needs some change. I'm not saying that I am 100% right in my program, but hopefully I can build good, strong horses that are prepared to compete at the distance and speed they are racing at. They rest is up to them!

[ratherrapid]

Best of luck to u. u r going to need a skilled rider and a place to train. If u can do the riding, more power to you! That's big in terms of prospective success.

You r correct, of course, that conditioning prevents injuries provided it is appropriate. Bill Pressey might agree that "appropriate" with race horses refers to performance and injury prevention. Nunnamaker's study is old and has a lot of faults, and I was never too enamored with it since the results were gotten by killing a bunch of young two year old horses. It is on the right track however.

I'd think QH training would be fairly easy conceptually. After some initial galloping work to get the horse's legs under it, would you just do short speed intervals, maybe three or four per day. I think Preston Burch had the schematic about right--speed work every 3rd day and trainer decision the other two days. I thought Tom Ivers first Fit Race Horse book(if u can find one) was interesting re QHs, although I'd personally avoid Ivers lengthy preliminaries for a number of reasons.

[kimberley mine]

I hired a trainer my first year so I could get my feet wet, and I was SHOCKED at how little my horse was exercised and how any trainer could expect her to compete at the level being asked WITHOUT injury. She looked great and felt great (part of which I know was not natural), but she wasn't fit. Or wasn't fit to my standards.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if a grass polo-fit horse lined up in a starting gate after being in play for 2 months (month of work before that), versus a race trained horse under typical US conditions after 3 months from being brought into work.

[Blowin Smoke]

Best of luck to u. u r going to need a skilled rider and a place to train. If u can do the riding, more power to you! That's big in terms of prospective success.

You r correct, of course, that conditioning prevents injuries provided it is appropriate. Bill Pressey might agree that "appropriate" with race horses refers to performance and injury prevention. Nunnamaker's study is old and has a lot of faults, and I was never too enamored with it since the results were gotten by killing a bunch of young two year old horses. It is on the right track however.

I'd think QH training would be fairly easy conceptually. After some initial galloping work to get the horse's legs under it, would you just do short speed intervals, maybe three or four per day. I think Preston Burch had the schematic about right--speed work every 3rd day and trainer decision the other two days. I thought Tom Ivers first Fit Race Horse book(if u can find one) was interesting re QHs, although I'd personally avoid Ivers lengthy preliminaries for a number of reasons.

Thank you ratherrapid! I have a copy, and have read Ivers book and thought it be interesting. I agree with you 100% in that there are some good points, but to that extreme, I would think the training would be grueling. Yes, my plan is to build them up galloping slowly, adding a little more distance per week. Then short interval sprints, every 4 - 5 days if possible. I can ride my own horses if I need to. I grew up riding hunters/jumpers so i'm fairly confident in flat tack and have a good seat and quiet hands, but I also have a young man that I trust who needs work, will listen and is trainable. I will use him as well.

As far as training, we have a 1/4 mile track at the house that I have used to condition and sprint my horses in the past, just no gates. But there is a training track about 20 miles from me where we can get official works, gate cards and such. So hopefully that will come in handy.

Like I said, I don't expect to take the racing world by storm, and i'm sure it will take me several years to tweek my program. My filly is a good horse, she's easy to be around, and has just enough speed to be fun. Hopefully I don't completely screw her up!

[Blowin Smoke]

I hired a trainer my first year so I could get my feet wet, and I was SHOCKED at how little my horse was exercised and how any trainer could expect her to compete at the level being asked WITHOUT injury. She looked great and felt great (part of which I know was not natural), but she wasn't fit. Or wasn't fit to my standards.

I sometimes wonder what would happen if a grass polo-fit horse lined up in a starting gate after being in play for 2 months (month of work before that), versus a race trained horse under typical US conditions after 3 months from being brought into work.

I've always heard that there is nothing more fit than a polo pony and a Standard bred so i'm fairly certain you'd have a horse race on your hands!