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  Discussion on How young is too young to start conditioning a yearling?
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Member:
rtrotter

Posted on Saturday, Jun 27, 2009 - 9:41 pm:

I have a 14 1/2 ( 15 on July 10) month old yearling standardbred pacing colt that I brought in from the breeding farm on June 2. From May 15 thru June 1 he was in a stall, not turned out but on an equicizer for approximately 15 minutes a day at the walk, brushed, feet picked up and in general handled. I had the farm do this because I also owned the brother who was a terror and had to be gelded at 18 months because he was going to hurt himself or someone else ( like me). At the time I had a barnful of mares, so gelding him was the best thing to do. I needed to get a take on how studdy he was and his attitude.

This yearling thankfully does not have any of his brother's bad habits and basically has done absolutely nothing wrong. In fact, he has done everything right.

I started handling him myself June 2 and we have progressed through the baby breaking stage. He stands on crossties, picks up all his feet for cleaning without giving me a fight. He has been harnessed, line driven, walks, whoas, and stands to get hooked, all on command. I did lunge him for very short ( less than 5 minutes each way, at a walk, trot, and whoa just so he could learn voice commands and to introduce him to the equipment he will be wearing for hopefully the rest of his racing life. He has handled all of this very well and at this point I would say that he has been the easiest of any of the yearlings I have ever broken, most of which I started with much later on in the season ( October-December).

Last Friday, after several days of walking him in a jogcart, we put him on the track and went 1 1/2 miles. He jogged liked he's been doing this his whole life, a few little distractions, but considering his age, I've seen racehorses act worse than he did. He has been going 1 1/2 miles about every other day, due to the weather and the track conditions ( He is jogging on a kind, soft dirt/sand track and he is barefoot). He seems to be tolerating the work well and although sweaty when he comes in (temps between 70-85 degrees) is not blowing or showing any signs of distress, eats everything in sight, looks good, legs good. I would give him a body condition of 5-6, you can just about see his ribs from the side. He seems really happy when on the track. He gets turned out before he jogs between 3-6 hours.

I talked to several people about breaking babies this early and got very positive feedback about it as long as I did not go more than 2 miles a day.

Now my questions:

Now that I have gotten this far, and considering this horse is not being ridden is there any downside to continuing with what I am doing as long as the horse remains happy and healthy?

At what point do you feel it would be safe to up his jog miles? He seems to be doing the 1 1/2 miles pretty easy, he is very light and airy gaited ( perfect for a standardbred) does not seem to interfere anywhere, also a great attribute ( we will see when I put the hobbles on, not planning on that for quite a while, though). His rate of speed right now is approximately 6-7 mph (slow). Normal jog speed for a race horse in between 14-18 mph. Training speeds are much faster than that.

I have several options available at the farm I am at. I can use their equicizor ( most breeding farms either use the equicizor or pony their yearlings as part of their sales prep program), I can use my tow gate and I can jog him.

Would varying his routine be of more benefit than doing things in a block? (like just jogging, or just towing or just using the equicizor for days at a time).

My original intent was to turn him out and let him be a horse but I do not want to lose the training and conditioning he will have gotten to that point. He will not start serious training until much later on this year, but I want him to be ready for it when it does start.

I have read the HA articles on training and conditioning a young horse, but much of that information pertains to horses whose future will be as riding horses ( not the handling parts since that is applicable to all horses).

I also read the study on exercising very young horses versus not exercising them at all and found the results interesting. But this horse is older than most of those horses used in the study, so I am not sure if it applicable in this case.

At any rate, I do want this horse to be conditioned properly, but I do not want to hurt him either, so I would rather go slow and take my time than go fast and hurt him.

Thanks for your time and advice and I apologize for such a long post.

Rachelle
Moderator:
DrO

Posted on Monday, Jun 29, 2009 - 8:22 am:

Hello trotter,
I know this is ultimately a unsatisfying answer but it is the best we have at this time, I quote from the article, "What is optimal loading is not known currently but suggests that the foal and yearlings early ability to exercise freely of paramount importance and that early introduction to control work loads may be beneficial." This would apply to long yearlings too.

To get to the key of your concern, yes it is possible to be doing damage to either or both bones and soft tissue without early evidence of a problem. Tendon bows, some types of fractures, and early onset DJD are all common examples. That leaves you with your best choice is looking for traditional training methods that have shown to produce sound and healthy competitors. Educate yourself about the traditional injuries of your sport and training method then watch very closely for early signs of problems. I would also note that some of these injuries seem more to do with not the level of exercise but with the amount of rest they get. It takes more than a day or even sometimes two for tissues to rebuild and remodel. Every working horse deserves at least 2 to 3 days off in a row every 7 to 10 days.
DrO
Member:
rtrotter

Posted on Monday, Jun 29, 2009 - 2:30 pm:

Dr. O,

I am very well versed in the traditional training methods for my industry and traditional injuries. I am not happy with some of the training methods and many of the injuries, which I feel are preventable are mainly caused by poor shoeing and lack of balanced feet. Most traditional trainers use too much medication and do not pay attention to the subtle changes that are happening as they go along and choose to treat injuries with injections, rather than rest, patience and care.

My horses are not treated like machines, they race with no medications and are not injected. I pay particular attention to my horses feet and how they are shod. As a result, they do not interfere and they stay sounder with less bone and ligament problems. They are exercised and trained on a regular basis, which I believe is what keeps them sound, healthy and able to race 40+ starts a year (very durable). When they have a problem I take care of it with rest or movement which ever is the most appropriate for the situation. I never rush them, I am very conservative when I have to bring one back to the races, so when they get back they usually stay there, sound and healthy.

Right now, this colt has not had 10 consecutive days of jogging, its been more like 2 days on and two days off, 1 day on and 2 days off, 3 days on 1 day off. He did jog 4 days in a row from Friday until today, but it seems the more days in a row he goes, the better he gets. In fact I went with him myself today and he was just fine.

In the race horse industry, giving a horse three days off does not fit into the weekly training plan. They are more likely to get 1 or 2 days off after they race or train and maybe Sunday off if they are not racing or training on Monday.

Of course this colt won't be racing or training anytime soon, right now its a matter of mannering him, in which he seems to be doing quite well. I am going to continue what I am doing, as I do not see any downside. I feel this is controlled limited exercise. I will continue giving him a few days off every few days like I have been doing because I am in no rush. Only time will tell if all this prep time will hurt him or help him, meanwhile when everyone else is out wrestling with their babies, mine will be jogging right along like an aged horse, which suits me just fine. If I feel or see any signs I am doing too much with him, I will give him additional time off.

Thanks
Rachelle
Member:
ekaufman

Posted on Monday, Jun 29, 2009 - 2:51 pm:

Hi Rachelle,

For what it's worth, there is well-funded research in the area of foal/young horse development and training and soundness. I've been scanning the research at the Colorado State Orthopaedic Research Center https://www.equineortho.colostate.edu./current.htm

As far as I can tell, there are some things that are generally poor management, none of which would be issues in your program. These are confinement, over-feeding, and aggressive over-training. As for the rest, I think that good people diverge honestly and with the best intentions on how and when to bring along young prospects. We don't have the population studies yet to tell us rates of long-term soundness with different approaches, and we also lack early, affordable diagnostics that would alert us if we were starting trouble. So I guess we watch the horse and watch the research and do our best, all the while realizing that we can't be assured of meeting our goals no matter what program we try.

To me, your approach sounds like one of several reasonable options, given what we know today.
Member:
rtrotter

Posted on Monday, Jun 29, 2009 - 4:45 pm:

Elk,

Thanks for the research links. So far, this colt has delightfully surprised me. Now, I hope he makes a racehorse. We can do everything right by them and still something can go wrong, thats just the nature of the beast.

I just did not want this one to become a little monster like his brother was which is why I decided to go with early intervention instead of waiting until October to bring him in. I hope it pays off.

This colt has had his problems, he was born down in the pasterns, a slight umbilical hernia both of which self-corrected ( The feet corrected with foal extensions). He also had rhoddococos as a baby found completely by accident as he was not showing any signs but another baby in the field with him did, so blood tests were taken and he was subsequently treated and recovered after three weeks in a stall. He was weaned early at 4 months old and has been on his own ever since.

I think all the handling through the first 4 months of his life probably had a considerable impact on him, even moreso than the handling he has gotten in the last month but it seems to have worked together.

He is very level headed and seems to adjust to anything I want to do with him. Today, was one of those days where everything just didn't go as I had planned. I usually have help to get him hooked and to jog him, but the guy that has been helping me for some reason did not show up. So, this poor baby stayed on the crossties for an hour just hanging out, never dug or acted like he was bored, nothing just relaxed and went to sleep standing there. I went to check on where they guy was and he had left the farm and went home, even after I'd spoken with him to tell him I'd be ready in 15 minutes. Seems he was in the process of having a fight with his girlfriend.

Any way, we have been hooking this colt in the barn, but not on crossties and he has been really good. So, I decided to hook him and jog him myself with no help. I set up the crossties and put him on them and he stood there to get hooked like the little trooper he is. I checked him up and away he went, just like he's been doing it it whole life. He just amazes me. I've never had one break as easily as he has ( I swore off breaking babies myself years ago). I am just waiting for the day he actually does something wrong. He'll probably be fine, I'll be the nervous wreck.

Thanks again
Rachelle
Member:
ekaufman

Posted on Monday, Jun 29, 2009 - 9:12 pm:

Well, I hope you'll post some race photos when he starts competing. To raise a colt to adulthood is one thing, and to raise him to a performance career is a whole different and much more difficult thing. I'm finding so much heartbreak in my own program at the moment that I would especially love to hear someone else's success story!
Member:
rtrotter

Posted on Monday, Jun 29, 2009 - 10:06 pm:

Elk.

I am sorry you are having such a difficult time with your program. I looked at your web site, your horses are beautiful!

I raised this colt's brother to adulthood and a racing career, but like I said in one of my earlier posts you can get then there but they don't always pan out to be what you want. I always thought there was something wrong with him behind. In the way he stood, he never squared up, was always standing off one leg or the other, had a bad attitude problem, always pinned his ears, and never finished a mile as well as he should have. I had several vets go over him, did blood work, tested for EPM etc. and everybody kept telling me I was nuts and there was nothing wrong. So, I thought it was the way he was trained or the fact that I do not use medications to race on. So, I decided to sell him in the hopes someone could figure him out and get him to race better. Well, he's been gone about two months now and he is still racing exactly the same way he was when I had him. He will not try and does not finish his miles. So, even though he is a racehorse, he is marginal by my standards. He would probably make someone a better riding horse than racehorse.

I lost the broodmare suddenly about 6 weeks ago, so the mold is broken with this last colt. Maybe his dad and mom looked down from horsey heaven and said its about time we did something right. Only time will tell!

Looking forward to some good luck in the future for you and me and all of us on HA.
Rachelle
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