Transcript:

[0:04]

[Music] Whenever you think of your horse — whenever you watch a horse — can you ever put yourself in their position and see what they see, feel what they feel? Imagine the show jumping Dutch Warmblood entering an arena. The horse has his or her rider on their back, their relationship as strong as ever, each feeling and knowing each other's tendencies. It's that bond that you form with them that we've talked about so much in every podcast.

[0:41]

And for this show jumping horse, they've done this plenty of times. Plenty of jumps in training, probably done some competitions before. But imagine it from their position — and not the rider's. Can you smell the crowd? The horse can. How well do you hear everybody around you? It could be a few hundred people watching, a few thousand, or in certain events tens of thousands. Yet for the horse, the rider keeps them focused, and the horse narrows their binocular vision, blocking out all the distractions — or trying to, at least.

[1:25]

Then, as you're the horse, you enter your pattern. You feel yourself being directed by your rider, and you see your first jump. From a distance, you can make out what the jump looks like — you get an idea of how high it can be — but then you lose sight of it as you get closer, and you depend entirely on that rider on top of you. Up and over you go. But then quickly, a few strides later — boom — another jump. And then you do your pattern. And then another jump. But at the end, as you're this horse — heart racing, breathing heavily through your nose, sweating — no faults. You feel the pats on the neck, you feel the excitement of the rider on your back, you hear the loud, boisterous crowd clapping. And as you're this horse exiting the arena, how do you feel? But better yet — how did you do it?

[2:24]

And Secretariat being led… He is number… The horse — and horses are the best thing in the world, isn’t it? I've always loved them, really, ever since I was a little girl.

[2:38]

Everybody’s in line… and they're off! Secretariat away very well, has good position. The love — I never thought owning a horse could mean so much to me. But Secretariat now taking the lead — the madness! What kind of a horse is that? I've never seen a horse like that before. Tightening now — he is moving like a tremendous machine.

[3:03]

Their story… Mustangs are more involved in the early development of this breed than I thought they were. But they were. Secretariat has opened to 22 lengths! He is going to be the Triple Crown winner.

[3:17]

Welcome to *Mad About Horses*. [Music]

[3:22]

Hello, I'm Dr. Chris Mortensen. I've been an equine science researcher and educator for over 20 years, and in this episode of *Mad About Horses*, we're going to talk about the equine athlete and the factors that make them so great at what they do. This is such an exciting topic, and it's a big, big topic — and we're going to break it down over a few podcasts.

[3:40]

If you have any love for these equids, you want to know: how can they be as athletic as they are? And what are all those factors that influence their performance? Why are there champions in show jumping, endurance, racing, cutting, barrel racing, halter classes — all of these different events that we see horses around the world compete in today?

[4:10]

What are the factors that determine whether that horse is going to be a champion, or if the horse is just going to compete and have fun with their owner? Which many people do — they don't necessarily want to be the best of the best, but they want to go and have fun and compete, and a lot of us do that.

[4:24]

So, where are horses competing today? I mean, we talked about show jumping — which is just one of the most fascinating competitions, in my opinion. It's horses dancing with the rider — it's fascinating to watch. But then you get eventing, which is a combination of dressage, show jumping, and then a cross-country course. Endurance riding. Obviously, we talked about racing — you have the Triple Crown with the Kentucky Derby, Preakness, and Belmont Stakes, and then it all accumulates at the end of the year with the Breeders' Cup.

[5:03]

We see horses in polo, we see horses in eventing, the FEI World Equestrian Games, The Royal Winter Horse Show, the Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping. We have major events every year. Horses all over the world are doing so many wonderful things. I haven’t even mentioned the Western disciplines — cutting, reining, barrel racing — all these different types of events. And there is a lot of things in common in how they do this, and that's what we're really going to talk about in this podcast that's probably going to end up being two. And we’ll see how we go with time, but I have a feeling this one's going to go a little bit longer, because there are some major categories that impact performance of a horse.

[5:45]

I can talk about things like conformation — what does that mean? The age of the horse — does that determine performance? The sex of the animal — can the mares compete as well as the stallions and geldings? What does the data say? What about their behavior — you know, what about horses that are, like we talked about, hot-blooded, flighty — these other behaviors? Are they good athletes or not?

[6:10]

And then we're going to mention some other things too, like diet — that has an impact. I have some interesting data there. And then — this is probably going to be its own podcast — breeds. Which breeds are better at which events? Like we talked about in the breed podcast, some of these horses are all-around horses, you find them in all sorts of events, but we'll look at the data and see which ones are at the top — if you're interested in competing at that level. But we find a lot of common denominators with these horses.

[6:44]

And from the beginning, talking about why horses matter — why horses are the most important species to humans — it all goes back to their basic body structure that gives them these abilities for us to ride, to jump, to pull carts, to go long distance. And it all goes back to their basic anatomy.

[7:03]

So the skeletal system — important for supporting the body and its movements. The muscle system that attaches to the skeletal system — that controls the body in those movements. The respiratory system — important to how much oxygen they can inhale through their nose to support their working muscles and body. The cardiovascular system — the heart and the blood — and down to the nervous system, which has an impact on their intelligence and aptitude. So all of that comes together to create this equid that can do the things that they do.

[7:45]

Now, this podcast isn’t going to cover a lot of basic anatomy. We're going to touch upon some of it as it impacts each of these categories. But looking at the horse's body from the ground up, to understand how they can run, how they can go long distances, how they can jump, how they can do the things that they do — and you always start with the hooves.

[8:10]

The hooves, to the horse, act as shock absorbers and also help provide traction. So unlike some other species that have — like us — five toes on each foot, or even if we go to a cow that has two toes — they're not going to be able to support their body as much in athletic competition like a horse can. That's one of the things that makes horses so unique — they just have that one toe on each foot, right? Four hooves, a single hoof each. So that is one of the reasons they've evolved to be able to run so fast and be as athletic as they are.

[8:48]

Then the horse has these long, strong leg bones that allow for powerful and efficient forward momentum. They have really dense and strong bones that contribute to their overall durability. And — this is going to be interesting — we're going to talk about this a little bit more in a minute, but the force of the body on those lower limbs… because when you watch them run, it is fascinating how it looks like skinny legs supporting all of that body weight. That's one of the reasons that they are so athletic.

[9:30]

Then you go to the muscles — very powerful in the horse — that attach to the skeletal system. This is what helps them generate force. In fact, their long spine is supported by so many powerful back muscles that allow them to carry a rider and still go long distances and make great jumps. So we're even hindering them by putting weight on their back, and these horses are such incredible athletes. We ask them to do so much — and they do it with… to sweat. I mean, generally, we want them to sweat — but they do it, and they do it really well.

[10:07]

Then when you look into the leg muscles — right — and they're known as digitigrade animals, meaning they kind of walk on their toes. And we're going to have a podcast dedicated to the hoof, because the hoof is fascinating. And their limbs are really created for speed. All of these bones — they have a really elongated metacarpal and metatarsal bones that we refer to as the cannon bone. So remember, in the *Origins of the Equid* podcast, I talked about how they went from four to three to a single digit, and the splint bones are remnants of those toes. So cannon bones are elongated, which helps the horse's legs be longer, and that directly contributes to the length of their strides — which I'm going to talk about here in a minute, because that's an important aspect — and really cover ground quickly.

[11:04]

So when we look at how a horse is put together — and it’s taken millions of years to get to this incredible, tough, hardy, athletic animal that we call horses — donkeys too. Donkeys are athletic in their own right, very hardy, evolved in different parts of the world, but maybe not quite as athletic as their cousins, the horse.

[11:26]

Now, to understand some of this — putting the skeletal structure together — talking about gaits. And “gaits” refer to how the horse moves. G-A-I-T-S — that’s how we spell it. In a book published by Dr. Hilary Clayton and a few other authors — Dr. Clayton is a well-renowned exercise physiologist in horses and movement biomechanics out of Michigan State — had, or has, a wonderful lab up there. The title of this paper was *Performance in Equestrian Sports*. She states that sport horses are selected by horsemen, often at a young age, with one of the most important selection criteria being visual appraisal of their gait patterns.

[12:05]

So then it goes on to talk about good gaits, bad gaits, how Warmblood registries use a system of scoring for gait quality. These gaits are going to have an impact on how well the horse is going to move and how athletic they are. So, very quick review on the four basic gaits of horses — and really, there’s five. It’s the four forward-momentum gaits: walk, trot, canter, and gallop. And then we do have “back.” And then you have what other people call the fifth gaits, or the special gaits, or the ambling gaits of our gaited horses, which we’ve talked about in other podcasts.

[12:54]

But just as a quick overview, it’s worthwhile to talk about these gaits and then — what does the research show with gait movement and its impacts on performance? The walk is what we call a four-beat gait. It has a four-beat gait movement, meaning each foot hits the ground independent of each other: one-two-three-four. Horses have four feet, so you just imagine: one-two-three-four, each hoof placed individually.

[13:28]

The pattern to do this — audio-vision in your mind: if you look at your two feet (your left foot, your right foot) and then you look at your two hands (your left hand, your right hand), if you imagine you’re walking on the ground on all fours, you could go and do each movement like a horse. So, in the walk, you can imagine the right hind of the horse — which would be your right foot — moves forward (step), followed by your right hand, or the horse’s right front (step). Then the left hind hoof of the horse — or what would be your left foot — would step forward, followed by the horse’s left front leg — or what would be your left hand.

[14:10]

So if you do it quick: right foot, right hand, left foot, left hand; right foot, right hand, left foot, left hand — that is a four-beat gait of how the horses walk. And the speed’s about 4 miles per hour, or 7 km/h — that’s the average for a light horse: medium body build, Quarter Horse, Thoroughbred, Arabian — that’s about how fast they walk.

[14:35]

Now, some of these other gaits get a little trickier. Again, to do this in a podcast setting — but I’m going to do it, because I have faith. I have faith in you, and I have faith in me trying to explain this. The trot is one of the more important gaits — and I’m going to talk about that in a second because Dr. Clayton and others go into why the trot is so important as far as evaluating how well a horse is going to move and how athletic they are.

[15:06]

The trot is where each diagonal leg works together — so the front leg and the opposite hind leg strike the ground together. And it’s a two-beat gait, so it’s: one-two, one-two, one-two, one-two — moving very, very quickly at the trot. So again, we’re going to look at our two feet and our two hands, and we’re going to see if we can do this.

[15:31]

Imagine the horse’s right hind leg — which is your right foot — is up in the air while your left hand — or the horse’s left front — is in the air. And then they hit the ground together. Then your other diagonal hand and foot are going to move — so that would be your right hand (or the horse’s right front) swinging forward at the same time the left rear leg of the horse — or your left foot — swings forward.

[16:03]

So again, let’s just pretend you’re the horse: your right foot is up while at the same time your left hand is up, moves forward, and hits the ground. Then your left foot and right hand are up, forward, and hit the ground. And you do it opposite — so the body’s swinging side to side. That’s the trot. Now, there’ll be an article associated with this that I will link in the show notes, so if you want to see some visuals, we will have that up to make it more clear. And just to wrap that up — speeds vary on the trot, around 10 miles per hour or 16 km/h for a medium-sized horse. Some will be slower, some will be quicker, depending on the pace of the horse, the breed of the horse — and there’s a lot of other factors — but that’s average.

[16:49]

Okay, this next one is going to be trickier — but I can do it. I can do this, and you can do it with me. I know, I know we can. And that’s the canter — fun gait. This is the one I think if you asked anybody that’s ridden horses, “What do you love to do most with your horse?” — I love trail riding, I love the views, I love going in the mountains, on the beach — it’s one of my favorite things to do. But to canter — or in Western riding we call it a lope — is just one of the most fun gaits there is. And people love the fast gait, the run or the gallop, which we’ll do next.

[17:28]

So, the canter footfall pattern is a three-beat gait. Now, how do we have three beats when horses have four legs or feet? This is where it gets tricky, because two of the opposite limbs are independent of each other, and then the other two opposite limbs work in unison. So again, we’re going to pretend you’re the horse, and we’re going to do what is called a right-lead canter.

[17:59]

So, in a right-lead canter, imagine your left foot is up off the ground and hits first. Then your left hand and your right foot are going to swing — like a trot — and strike the ground (that’s beat two). Then your right hand is going to reach far out on its own and strike the ground. And then you’re going to go and do: your left hind foot hits up and hits the ground; then your left hand and right foot are out and hit the ground together; and then you’re reaching with your right hand. That is a right-lead canter.

[18:39]

Okay, now we’re going to switch it up and do a left-lead canter. And horses can do this — these are natural gaits for them. Once I have to do the gallop, I’m going to talk about left and right leads, because it’s important. In racing, they change leads during the race — which you may not know, and you never even see it. You have to be very, very acute to see the lead changes that they do — it’s incredible what they do with these horses.

[19:05]

Okay — left lead. So the left lead means our left hand is going to be the one reaching out the farthest, but we start with our right foot. So your right foot — up, hits the ground. Then your left foot and right hand — like the trot — swing and hit the ground together. Then your left hand is going to reach and hit the ground. So imagine the horse doing this: right back foot up, hits the ground; left back foot, right front foot reach out, hit the ground; then stretches out with that left front foot. And that’s a left-lead canter.

[19:44]

Again, there will be an article associated with this linked in the show notes.

[19:50]

And looking at these different gaits — now, the gallop or run is the fastest gait we know with horses. And the Quarter Horse — again, one of the fastest animals on Earth at 55 mph, or 88 km/h — they're in the top five. Cheetah, obviously, are faster, then the pronghorn antelope, and then wildebeest. Quarter Horses are about side by side with each other. Most horses run or gallop about 30 mph, or 48 km/h.

[20:17]

Now, it's like the canter, but each foot strikes independent of each other — so it is a four-beat gait. But if you followed the pattern of the canter, instead of those opposite limbs striking together, the back hits first. So if we were in a right lead, it would be: left foot, right foot, left hand, right hand — so the right hand is reaching out far. Again, in a right-lead gallop: left foot, right foot, left hand, right hand. You can do that as you listen, you can kind of imagine it: left foot, right foot, left hand, right hand — reaching out far. That’s the gallop reach.

[21:04]

If you switch that up into the left lead, it’s: right foot, left foot, right hand, left hand — reaching. Okay — right foot, left foot, right hand, left hand — reaching.

[21:18]

When Thoroughbreds run in the United States, they run counterclockwise. When they’re going down straightaways, they’re in a right lead. When they hit a turn — because they’re going to be turning left — they will switch to a left lead. That is so they don’t veer out to the right and hit horses, but it also helps reduce muscle fatigue. So you switch up their gait. It happens so quickly, but next time you watch Thoroughbreds running, see if you can detect those lead changes. See if you can see them in a right lead going down the straightaways, and then once they hit those left turns, watch them switch to those left leads as they dig in and turn. And then on the backstretch, they’ll go back to the right lead, and then that final turn, they’ll switch to a left lead — and then in the home stretch, they’ll be in a right lead as they cross the finish line.

[22:10]

Now, there are other gaits. There’s the pace, which is like the trot, but it’s the legs on the same side in the two-beat gait — so it’s like they go side to side: one-two, one-two, one-two. In Standardbred racing, they have pacers — you can watch it, and you can see both legs on the right side move. So it would be like your right foot and right hand swinging out and hitting the ground, then your left foot and left hand swinging and hitting the ground at the same time. Then there’s the ambling gaits, which we’re going to talk about in a future podcast: the running walk, the rack, the paso corto, tölt — others. But the main gaits are the important ones.

[22:47]

Now, why that is brought up — because the quality of the gait is very critical to how well the horse will do as an athlete, and if they may be predisposed to any injuries. Before we get to that, though, I do want to mention Eadweard Muybridge — and this was one of the first motion pictures ever created, and it was called *The Horse in Motion*. Again, shows you — one of the first motion pictures ever, ever created was about a horse running. It is so incredible to watch because this showed that horses actually have an airborne phase when they run. And this is when all four legs are up off the ground — and it almost looks like the horse is floating. If you took a picture right at that moment, it looks like it’s not touching the ground at all, because of their forward momentum, all legs are up off the ground.

[23:44]

The other incredible thing about it — and I have a study that talks about this here in a minute — was during one of those phases, so let’s say a right lead: that right front leg reaches out, and as it hits the ground, all three other legs are up off the ground, and it is supporting all of the horse’s weight. So much so that studies have shown anywhere from 170% of their body weight up to 210% of their body weight — all of that force on that hoof, on that cannon bone, on that leg. It is incredible to see, and it really shows you how incredible these horses are — that they can do what they can do with all of that pressure and force on those legs that look so skinny and so vulnerable to damage, but they support the weight of the horse so well.

[24:44]

But again, that is where we actually start to see some of our injuries with some of the things we do. So again, that’s another podcast for another day, but it would be a fascinating one — to look at where horses do get injured, and a lot is in the lower extremities because it does have so much force, and their conformation, and their gaits.

[25:04]

Now, to go back to Dr. Clayton talking about the trot — and why the trot is so important — is, like she states it right there: the most important gait for selection of sport horses is the trot. It’s the ideal gait and speed to train a horse overground, under saddle, because it can be used to help evaluate stride characteristics.

[25:33]

So when we talk about equid or equine conformation, that is one of the most important tools we have to predict athletic performance. In a previous podcast — right before this one — I did talk about one of my favorite horses. And if you haven’t listened to that one, I won’t ruin it for you — you can listen to the beginning. But that horse had perfect conformation that made them a champion.

[25:52]

When you go to horse sales, people with trained eyes — that’s what they are looking for. Talking to one of my really good friends, who is an AQHA judge — conformation is everything to a horse. It is what he has trained so many hours — I mean, trained for years — to be a qualified judge. And that is one of the things they have to know inside and out, to be able to look at a horse and go: yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. And then they can evaluate its breeding, evaluate its athletic ability — that has impacts down its lineage, right? And if you’ve ever bred them or something like that, the conformation of the animal is very critical.

[26:39]

Now, that is going to also be discipline-specific. So traits that they’re looking for in certain disciplines may not translate into traits that are, say, good for Arabians in endurance racing, or Hanoverians — or a lot of our Warmbloods — in show jumping. Those traits may be different. It’s going to depend a lot on what you want to do with it.

[27:07]

Now, if you’re not quite sure what conformation is — this is basically the entire structure and shape of the horse, how their bodies are made. So we go back to genetics — that is the blueprint of how that horse is made. A good definition came out of a research paper published just a few years ago, and it was talking about the relationship between morphology and performance in the Pura Raza Española horse. But it had a good definition that I pulled out — and to quote the authors, they said:

[27:45]

“The horse conformation — the morphology of the horse’s body, which describes bone, musculature, and characteristics — is a result of natural and artificial selection for various purposes. It is considered a reliable indicator of horse performance, which plays an important role in modern sport horse purchases and breeding decisions, because it correlates with gait movement and locomotion traits.”

[28:06]

So we do know poor conformation can lead to decreased athletic performance and injury. Another good paper talks about “form defines function” — it’s something we’ve always taught since I’ve been in school, learning about animals and learning about horses. The conformation of the horse — how it relates to “form defines function” — and this is basically how the horse is formed, and then how that relates to their function. In this paper, they talked about how it relates to injury. To quote them, they said: “A thorough understanding of the conformation of the horse is fundamental to the approach of assessing musculoskeletal issues, lameness being the most significant.”

[29:00]

Lameness means injury. However, this information is also valuable in assessing the medical status of a horse for purchase, for selecting sires and dams for breeding, and then also shoeing recommendations — because that is going to determine what type of shoes, how their hooves wear down.

[29:23]

So not to get too deep in the weeds of this, but just to drive home — conformation is so critical to how well that animal will perform. Now, if you want to learn more, madbarn.com has two conformation articles as I record this — more are probably on their way. You can look up “Evaluating Horse Conformation: Factors That Judges Look For,” and then “Common Forelimb Conformation Faults in Horses” — and it’s a guide. So check those out, and you can read a little bit more into it until we can do another podcast at a future date, discussing more of what those traits are, what judges are looking for, what relates from form to function — because that takes its own podcast, and we need to do that to take this a step further in horse ability.

[30:13]

Right — so if you’re asking yourself, “Okay, I want a show jumping horse — does height matter?” Well, yes, it can. It has an influence. Now, I do know of a pony named Stroller that was 14.1 and actually won gold at the Olympics as a show jumping horse. So does height matter? Yes, it does — but what does the data say? And one aspect where height is important is looking at the relationship with its biomechanics and its ability to generate speed.

[30:57]

So we do know taller horses tend to have longer strides, slower stride frequency — so that could make a difference in certain disciplines. So we need to look at stride length and stride frequency, and what that means, and why height matters. Well, if we use Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses — they’re great examples. Quarter Horses stand a bit shorter than Thoroughbreds, but in a sprint, a Quarter Horse is faster than a Thoroughbred.

[31:28]

A three-year-old racing Thoroughbred stands about 1.64 m — so that’s 65 inches. And if you’ve listened to the other podcast, or you know how to count hands, if you do the math, that is 16.1 hands. Now, females are just a tad shorter — two inches shorter — three-year-old Thoroughbreds at 63 inches, or 15.3 hands. The average yearling Thoroughbred — so they go to the yearling Thoroughbred sales, that’s a big thing every year — at one year old, this Thoroughbred would be standing 57 inches, or 14.1 hands. These are racing Thoroughbreds.

[32:10]

If we go to our Quarter Horses, on average, racing Quarter Horses stand 1.56 m — 61 inches, or 15.1 hands. So you can see, Thoroughbreds stand at least 3 inches taller than a Quarter Horse that’s racing. So, if we say height matters as far as stride length and speed — well, what does the data say?

[32:39]

A great study that compares this was published just last year in *Translational Animal Science*, and it’s about the average stride length and stride rate of Thoroughbreds and Quarter Horses during racing. This was published out of Michigan State University — great study, I really enjoyed reading it in preparation for this podcast. And just quickly — a stride length is defined as the distance between placement of the same hoof during movement of a gait. So, if I go back to a gallop — a right-lead gallop — and your right hand, as it reaches out and hits the ground, then you go through your left foot, right foot, left hand… when that right hand strikes again, the distance between those two placements of your right hand — or what would be the right front hoof of the horse — is the stride length.

[33:45]

Okay — so for every time that right front hoof hits the ground for a horse, the distance between those two points is a stride length. When you compare Quarter Horses to Thoroughbreds, it gets a little tricky. Quarter Horses are sprinters — they’re running much shorter races. You’re talking a race as short as 100 m, or 110 yards, up to the longest in a Quarter Horse race — 400 m, or 440 yards. Again, going back to the Quarter Horse breed lineage, a couple podcasts ago I talked about Quarter Horses being created because Americans wanted to race a quarter of a mile through town, and have races like that — whereas the Thoroughbred was really known for distance: for a mile or more.

[34:30]

Thoroughbreds race much longer — they go from six furlongs up to 10 furlongs. If you’ve never been in Thoroughbred racing, you probably don’t even know what a furlong is. A furlong is an ancient term still used today in Thoroughbred racing — it actually dates back to ancient England when they would plow fields. An actual measurement, a furlong is 1/8 of a mile — but a furlong is one furrow length in one acre of farmland. So if you think of a plow horse pulling a plow and they’re digging up the dirt with that plow behind them, that’s a furrow — one length of that was about an eighth of a mile per acre. So that’s what a furlong is.

[35:20]

So if we go back to Thoroughbreds racing: six furlongs is about 3/4 of a mile, 10 furlongs is 1 1/4 miles. Okay, that out of the way — what do we know about stride length? When you look at the data overall, Thoroughbreds have a longer stride length. In this study, they found that Thoroughbreds had an average stride length of anywhere from 24 to 24.2 feet, or 7.3 to 7.5 m — which is pretty incredible. Secretariat was, I think, close to 25 feet, and then Man o’ War had like a 28-foot stride length.

[35:59]

Quarter Horses — much shorter stride length in the short sprint race. Here you’re looking at a stride length of 16, 16 1/2 feet, or 5 m. But in the longer race — that went 400 m, or 440 yards — that stride length in the Quarter Horse got longer, almost 22 1/2 feet, or 6.8 m. So overall, you can say Thoroughbreds — we know they’re taller on average compared to racing Quarter Horses — have a longer stride length, but yet Quarter Horses are faster. So how does that make sense?

[36:40]

We talked about stride length equals speed, right? That’s true — but the other aspect is stride frequency: how many strides are they taking over the same amount of distance. And this is where Quarter Horses make up that speed — because they are sprinting, they are taking way more strides versus a Thoroughbred who’s in a fast endurance race. He or she — they’ve got a long way to go, and they’re moving as fast as they can, but their stride rate is much less.

[37:16]

Just to show you some differences: in the short Quarter Horse race — so we’re going 100 m, 110 yards — on average, it takes them about 20 strides to finish that race. That is incredible — that’s how fast they’re moving. In the 440 yards, or 400 m race, they take 60 strides to finish. The Thoroughbreds, in the 1,200 m — or the 3/4-mile, six-furlong race — they take 167 strides. In the long race — the mile and a quarter, 10 furlongs, 2,000 m — they, on average, take 271 strides.

[37:55]

Now, when you do the math and convert it all to strides per second — the sprint, the shortest race — the Quarter Horse is taking 2.96 strides, close to three strides a second. So one — there’s — oh, he took three strides — two — three more strides — three, you know, three more strides — four — blink, and the race is over. That’s how fast they move. In the 400 m, or 440-yard race, they took 2.81 strides — so a little less, because it’s a little bit farther.

[38:27]

Then, when you go to the Thoroughbreds — in the short race, the six furlongs — that’s 2.45 strides. And then in the long race, they’re doing 2.23. Still incredibly fast — I mean, you’re talking these animals are booking it. Thoroughbreds — in the study, they talk about it — Thoroughbreds are just a little bit under Quarter Horses, not quite as fast, but they are nearly as fast as the American Quarter Horse.

[38:58]

So in a sprint — gamble on the Quarter Horse. Anything half a mile or more — maybe even a little less than half a mile — bet on the Thoroughbred. Once the Thoroughbred gets up and running at speed, and at that distance, they will most likely — especially these top Thoroughbreds — outrun a Quarter Horse every day. But still — both incredible athletes.

[39:19]

Now, to kind of wrap some of this up — outside of racing, stride length is critical in certain events. All the gaits are very critical, right? In dressage — I can’t wait to talk about dressage one day. It’s just one of my favorites. I admire — I have never ridden dressage, I wish I could — it’s just one of those events where you watch, and the communication between the rider and the horse is so subtle. It is something I’ve admired for years. When it comes to knowing stride length in things like show jumping — knowing the distance between the jumps and how many strides your horse will take — it’s going to depend on the gait that you’re in and the stride of your horse.

[40:10]

So 12 feet is considered to be the standard — anybody that show jumps knows this, and it’s something they teach when you’re young. But riders do learn how to either lengthen a horse’s stride or shorten it to be able to make those jumps without any faults.

[40:24]

That’s just conformation — and that’s just touching the surface, talking about gaits, stride length, stride rate, the musculature of the horse’s impacts on the skeleton, and the conformation of the skeleton. All of that is coming in a future podcast — it’s that important to understand in the horse world and horse industry.

[40:50]

We’re going to continue this discussion in the next podcast. But things like age — haven’t even touched upon that yet. What does the data show? When do horses reach peak performance, and at what age does that decline? And then what about the gender of the horse — male versus female? What does the data say? What discipline? If you look at show jumping versus polo — there is data out there.

[41:22]

And then there’s an interesting study talking about maybe there’s some bias in there. You know, what does that say about us today in the horse world? Behavior — that’s 10 podcasts right there. But how does behavior — what studies are out there as far as behaviors that we can pick up — and does that impact performance? I have friends that are researching this today, looking at startle response, and then how does that horse go on to training?

[41:49]

Diet — ultra critical. I’ll talk a little bit about research my good friend Dr. Angie Atkin did, and how that turned into foals learning faster. They were calmer. Then they went back as yearlings and two-year-olds — what did they find? We’re going to talk about that.

[42:09]

And then breeds is a massive factor — we’re going to introduce that topic, and then it’s going to be in a podcast very soon. It’s on my short list — it’s coming very soon. It is a big one: which breeds for what discipline. And we’ll touch upon that too. But a lot to absorb — please go online, look at those resources, look at the gait footfall patterns, use your own feet and hands as examples. I think that’s a good way to learn.

[42:36]

And then just stand in awe — go watch that Eadweard Muybridge film. It’s going to be in the show notes. Watch that horse float. Watch that horse place its limb on the ground knowing 200% plus of its body weight is pushing down on that hoof — and it keeps going, and going, and going. How can you not love these animals?

[43:11]

[Music] Welcome back. All right — I hope you got the gait. I was literally pushing my hands and feet out in front of me as I spoke. I hope you picked that up — and if you didn’t, please go online. There’ll be a link in our show notes, or you can just look up “footfall patterns of the basic gaits in horses” and look at it. Use your own body, or go out and use your own horse — watch their feet move and understand that. It’s fascinating to watch them move, and when you start tying in form and function, it just all starts clicking into place, and you’re like — wow, that makes so much sense.

[43:54]

Then, talking about stride rate and stride frequency — you can go watch a race or a horse running and try to identify what lead they’re in — and stand in awe. Just stand in awe. You just gotta love these animals — and obviously, I do. I hope the passion’s coming through, because spending the hours going through these updated research articles — it’s just fascinating. And it just makes me so proud that my colleagues around the world that I’ve met, and other people I admire that I’ve yet to meet, are all studying these animals. And even you, each day — day in, day out — working with your horses. And if you don’t work with horses but you want to — I cannot recommend enough that you jump into the industry. Go work at a barn, go work with somebody that’s training horses — you won’t regret it.

[44:42]

With all that being said, please visit us at madbarn.com. Go to the Learn tab — over 400+ articles. A lot of the breed articles, again those conformation articles, are in there. Any of these topics — just search in the search bar, and an article should come up. We’re pushing as many out as we can. If there is a topic that you can’t find, please email me — podcast@madbarn.com. We’ll read the email and we will see if we can get that done into an article, and then that could be a future podcast topic.

[45:16]

I want to thank everybody that’s given five-star reviews on Spotify and iTunes. I’m going to start asking for those next week, but if you’ve listened to us from the beginning and you’re enjoying the podcast, if you don’t mind just quickly clicking on a five-star on iTunes and Spotify — that helps the podcast circulation, that helps us get picked up by podcatching apps, and helps get this information out so we can make the world a better place for horses — and a better place for you.