Totilas, the poor horse that can't be left alone even in death

[ihatework]

Once you start down the road of the sort of cpd that I do, you start to see that we have already bred blood horses way beyond what their structures, especially soft tissues, were designed for. Is there a horse at GP that doesn't have regular injections? Can we call them sound? And now the hypermobility/flexibility required to compete at the top levels, means it's even worse than it was 30 years ago.

I don’t disagree, but are there many elite athletes that don’t have continual medical and physio support to keep them competitive at the top? Aches, pains, soft tissue niggles. Periods off training etc.

Ultimately the bottom line is that if we use horses for sport we invariably break them to some degree. Some just break more easily/quickly than others. In my opinion ANY horse that can happily compete at elite level for 2-3 seasons is a sufficiently sound horse.

 

[daffy44]

Once you start down the road of the sort of cpd that I do, you start to see that we have already bred blood horses way beyond what their structures, especially soft tissues, were designed for. Is there a horse at GP that doesn't have regular injections? Can we call them sound? And now the hypermobility/flexibility required to compete at the top levels, means it's even worse than it was 30 years ago.

I have produced two horses to competing at GP, not International Elite level I admit, but still comfortably 65/66% so not awful, the first retired from competition totally fit and sound having never had a joint injection aged 17, the other one is 13 now, and so far has never had a joint injection, so it is possible for GP not to be injected.

I do agree that joint injections are common in high level elite horses, and I dont think its the worst thing, to support horses at the highest level, but its not something I have had done to mine.

 

[Zuzan]

............ but often a stallion that has stayed sound into older age has not done anything like the work/performance of something like Totilas.... it's not really a like for like test and so i think it's very hard to weigh up which is more important. I want a horse that will perform AND last, the holy grail, I don't think it's very easy to figure that one out without a crystal ball.

You see my take on this is that in specifically Dressage the horse should become sounder, stronger, more even, more durable as it progresses .. the fact that in many cases this is not the case makes me think the principles of dressage have been forgotten..

All horses will of course have a limit in what they are capable of .. some will find tempi changes harder than other and some will come more easily to collection or extension than others, some will favour one rein over the other ... the point of dressage, I thought, was to make the best of the horse, whilst understanding and working with their limits ..

If a horse breaks down my view is that it is a failing of the training .. The training has not been tailored to the specific horse. A failure to understand that specific horse's vulnerabilities / inherent weeknesses and act accordingly.

When you have hyper mobile limbs or a specific conformation characteristic (say a long back) it will make some movements / excercises easier than they should be and other's harder .. when an exercises is too easily come too it's very easy to over test / work and then cause injury.. That's my pilates inspired take on horse training..

Bottom line if you want durable look for a skelatal conformation that lends itself to strength, has plently of space for muscle / ligament attachments and is close coupled and doesn't have very long pasterns, and provides the optimum of potential for shock absorption .. eg sloping shoulders.. oh and the angle of those shoulders should be the same as the pasterns .. I remember doing a module of equine mgmt years ago that had the equine equivalent of Vetruvian Man!

 

[milliepops]

ummmm, I think in an ideal world I'd agree with most of those points, I don't think the point of competition dressage is to make the best of a horse within it's limits, I think the point is to get the highest % at GP level, but here we go again down a rabbit hole of whether competitive sport is any good for horses at all. It's not incompatible with a rider striving to do that obviously, i think most people do, but as soon as you put a scoring system on it does chip away at the purity of purpose

There are also plenty of horses who break down through accident, so it's not as black and white as the training going wrong, you can have a highly promising very talented very sound horse, who twists a foot in a rabbit hole in the field and that's the end of it's competition career. should a stallion like that be gelded as not fit for purpose, or should it be able to pass on the "what might have been" genes....?

it's pretty hard as an amateur to figure out what the priority should be, i've been tossing around in my head proven GP horses who then retire to stud (therefore have the performance bit nailed) vs amateur produced ones with a less solid performance record but with nice proven personality/trainability and progeny etc... there's no way of knowing whether the latter would have stood up to the GP work, that's what I was getting at. Just cos they are nice people and competed at e.g. small tour doesn't mean they would go further.

 

[milliepops]

You didn't have her doing passage at 5 though, MP, did you? It's the age that bothers me, not the hypermobility. Ludo's hypermobility will be his greatest asset (alongside his temperament) if i can get him to physical maturity in one piece.
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ok, that's not how it read.

and no, at 5 she was dossing around being fairly idle, heheh. i don't particularly see it in her work. more in the way she moves/stands in daily life. Which is why i think it may be more common than anyone realises, and not confined to fancy dressage bred young WBs.

 

[ycbm]

ok, that's not how it read.

and no, at 5 she was dossing around being fairly idle, heheh. i don't particularly see it in her work. more in the way she moves/stands in daily life. Which is why i think it may be more common than anyone realises, and not confined to fancy dressage bred young WBs.

Well I'm obviously going to agree with you there, owning a stadardbred cross appaloosa with it ?. I suspect most of us with them just call them "late maturing" and wait for them to grow up. Ludo is doing something astonishing right in front of my eyes this spring. He finally, at 6, looks like a horse and not a gangly puppy with legs too long for his body.
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[Mule]

Once you start down the road of the sort of cpd that I do, you start to see that we have already bred blood horses way beyond what their structures, especially soft tissues, were designed for. Is there a horse at GP that doesn't have regular injections? Can we call them sound? And now the hypermobility/flexibility required to compete at the top levels, means it's even worse than it was 30 years ago.

Cpd?

 

[ycbm]

Continuous Professional Development

(Introduced to make sure people keep up to date with advances in their profession. )
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[Zuzan]

.................
it's pretty hard as an amateur to figure out what the priority should be, i've been tossing around in my head proven GP horses who then retire to stud (therefore have the performance bit nailed) vs amateur produced ones with a less solid performance record but with nice proven personality/trainability and progeny etc... there's no way of knowing whether the latter would have stood up to the GP work, that's what I was getting at. Just cos they are nice people and competed at e.g. small tour doesn't mean they would go further.

It is a dilema .. you'll probably guess my leaning is to the 2nd .. given as close as possible to "Vetruvian Horse" .. to me conformation and character are the must haves.. my reasoning being having a horse you have to wrap in cotton wool or is intrinsically weak is so much less fun..

I am utterly blessed with the horse of a lifetime who is intrinsicallly strong .. and this is something I do not take for granted .. but is also athletically very able in an allrounder type of way .. this for me as a serious amauteur is the ideal.. I couldn't wish for more.

 

[tristar]

i go for the strength part, quality horses with big muscles, deep hearted, very well coupled, quality bone, a lot of breakdown is the failure of training, the failure on the deepest level to connect with what is happening under the rider, the tact to ask for little then retreat, then come back a the right moment and to know when to stop.

and all movement when training should be enhancing the horse, when done well the dressage should be lubricating the joints and building the muscles, toning the posture, should look beautiful and not be a long discussion about hyper do da tarantula legs and breakdown of or suitability of a horse like totilas for breeding which is the saddest thing

 

[tristar]

It is a dilema .. you'll probably guess my leaning is to the 2nd .. given as close as possible to "Vetruvian Horse" .. to me conformation and character are the must haves.. my reasoning being having a horse you have to wrap in cotton wool or is intrinsically weak is so much less fun..

I am utterly blessed with the horse of a lifetime who is intrinsicallly strong .. and this is something I do not take for granted .. but is also athletically very able in an allrounder type of way .. this for me as a serious amauteur is the ideal.. I couldn't wish for more.

tell us more , i like where you are coming from ie timescales, maturity, marker flags for advancement, approach of training the young horse and setting up the early foundations of reaching potential without compromising soundness.

 

[Wishfilly]

I don’t disagree, but are there many elite athletes that don’t have continual medical and physio support to keep them competitive at the top? Aches, pains, soft tissue niggles. Periods off training etc.

Ultimately the bottom line is that if we use horses for sport we invariably break them to some degree. Some just break more easily/quickly than others. In my opinion ANY horse that can happily compete at elite level for 2-3 seasons is a sufficiently sound horse.

Competitive/serious dancers also, and a lot of them will break down young due to the strain they often put on their body at a young age. Which possibly has parallels with dressage horses, also.

 

[ycbm]

Competitive/serious dancers also, and a lot of them will break down young due to the strain they often put on their body at a young age. Which possibly has parallels with dressage horses, also.

Except that the athletes and dancers can choose to do it, horses have it done to them.
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[Wishfilly]

Except that the athletes and dancers can choose to do it, horses have it done to them.
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That's a very valid point and I do agree completely.

Although without wishing to derail I'm not sure how much informed consent a pre-teen can give about something that will long term damage their body.

 

[ycbm]

ANY horse that can happily compete at elite level for 2-3 seasons is a sufficiently sound horse.

I would possibly agree if this is qualified by saying that at the end of that time they should still be able to do lower level work without medication in the same relative numbers as non elite horses.

It wouldn't, to me, be acceptable to compete a horse for 3 seasons at GP in the knowledge that at the end of that time the horse would effectively be worn out by that level of work.
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