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  Discussion on Forced exercise under a year of age
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Member:
Wolfydoc

Posted on Friday, Sep 16, 2005 - 11:28 pm:

Hi DrO,

In the article associated with this section, there is a statement regarding DOD in foals stating that "Forced exercise of horses prior to a years age was even worse tha[n] forced rest." Can you elaborate a bit more as to what level/type of exercise the statement is referring to? Thanks,
Cindy
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Monday, Sep 19, 2005 - 3:00 pm:

Hello Cynthia,
Perhaps the best experimental evidence of this was explored in the report:
Equine Vet J Suppl. 1999 Nov;(31):112-9.
Conclusions regarding the influence of exercise on the development of the equine musculoskeletal system with special reference to osteochonDrOsis.

I do not have the whole report but in the summaries the foals were said to be in a rather high intensity exercise program. The 3 groups in the experiment were:
1) box stalled
2) box stalled with the intensive exercise program
3) pasture rest

Unfortunately we did not get to see a program of pasture rest and exercise program. However my own experience is that foals that are lunged are a group at high risk for early arthritis. We have been discussing this quite a bit lately and you will find those discussions at Training Horses » Training Your Horse's Body » Exercise Physiology and Conditioning » Discussion on Functional adaptation of articular cartilage.
DrO
Member:
Wolfydoc

Posted on Tuesday, Sep 20, 2005 - 12:27 am:

Thanks DrO,
I never explored that section of this site so I missed it entirely! But I just read it. I will play devil's advocate: what about the wild horse (mustang) foals who have to follow the herd regardless of how fast or how long they go? I watch them out here near Reno, NV as they run up and down huge hills with their herd. I wonder how this affects their joints - they certainly can't all be arthritic by the time they are two. I guess natural selection plays some role here, but do our domestic horses have wimpy joints or what?

I only started recently wondering about all this because I will soon be getting a 5 month old. He'll be a trail horse, noncompetitive but nonetheless doing hard mountain trails some day hopefully. I wanted to just hand walk and eventually pony him at a walk (or let him follow loose if he bonds with one of our geldings) around the ranches in our neighborhood and eventually out in the BLM, to expose him to all the potentially frightening stuff out there.
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Tuesday, Sep 20, 2005 - 9:03 am:

Hello Cynthia,
In the wild, horses do what horses are going to do. We don't have information of what these horses joints look like nor if the exercise these wild foals get is less than optimum for the health of the joints. Though you see them racing up and down the hills, for every minute of such activity there are many hours of just grazing.

There are important differences in our domesticated horses. First, do to better or at least richer nutrition, domestic horses tend to be heavier and grow faster than wild horses at every stage of life. Also many breeds of our domestic horses are much larger than their wild cousins putting extra stress on joints whose surface area only grows appx by squares while the weight grows appx. by cubes. Lastly forced exercise of foals tends to be very repetitive and often in circles, where concussion is focused to one small area and/or loaded unevenly across a joint surface.

I really don't see any conflict between the results of exercise in the wild and the observations in these reports. I think the point of the articles is not that all exercise is harmful but that we don't know what is the type and amount for optimum joint health.
DrO
Member:
Wolfydoc

Posted on Tuesday, Sep 20, 2005 - 12:08 pm:

Makes total sense. Sure is an area where we desperately need more info.

The vet I use the most works a lot on cutting horses and like the two cases of young QHs with arthritis you mentioned he sees lots of 2, 3 and 4 year olds with horrible arthritis also. I'm sure jumping sideways repeatedly while working cows is about as bad if not worse than lungeing in a circle.

Thanks for all this info DrO.
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