Born to Sea

BTS is a smashing horse, all right, but several kilos heavier than NEPHRITE, who has a slimmer and more athletic frame. BTS's action may be suited to soft ground, but his big frame, which is well filled, probably doesn't. You only had to see the rear shot to note that he's wide behind, with the proverbial leg at each corner, to know he's a big boy. NEPHRITE is an effective late closer, in USspeak, while BTS looks one who may need to be wound up carefully with help from the front, meaning he'll always be vulnerable to those who can scoot in late. Nothing wrong with BTS's attitude - he fair fell from the gates in his desire to get going!
 
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Be interesting to find out what sort of 'lame' it is - if he's jarred himself, I'm not over-surprised given his bulk. He is a good athlete, for sure, but he is a hefty horse and I'd not be amazed to hear he'd suffered a hairline crack or received some sort of impact injury. Hopefully, he'll be fine, but losing some of the chub wouldn't harm the dear boy.
 
Grey said:
I hope you followed through, Luke. I got a text from a friend at the track just before the off to say Nephrite was the clear pick of the parade ring.
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I did -a good days wages,nothing that needs to be declared to the taxman or the wife.
 
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I wouldn't be surprised if BTS was most effective at distances shorter than a mile next year.

probably for nephrite as well he could be another stravinsky
 
I was thinking the opposite. He needs further. With that action they're going to have a job keeping him sound anyway.
 
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OTB: he has the action of what is called a 'climber'. It looks as if the horse is bounding in front like a playful puppy and it does, as you say, involve enough time in the air to not be as effective a locomotion as NEPHRITE's. All deviations from truly straight, forward-moving strides detract from speed and energy efficiencies, so it's a fault of biomechanics, if you like.

A horse like the malformed ATTRACTION overcame her seriously wrong front legs by leading for most of the race with her 'best' leg, effecting false lead changes from time to time as that leg tired. That is, she made a slightly higher stride, as horses often do when they switch a tiring lead leg - but in her case, this merely rested the leg for a nano-second, before it continued its lead work. Near to the finish, though, she knew she could lead with her less-tired but more wonky leg, and would switch to that to finish her race.

So, BORN TO SEA is a climber, and you'd probably want to view that action in the same light as one with rounded action, where the legs seem to form circles as the horse runs, and those which hit the ground rather hard, due to running mostly on their forehand and not optimising their rear-end power. None of these have a fluid swing-and-glide action, with a straightening front leg, which is the most desirable, and will probably find softer ground kinder to their run styles than firmer surfaces.
 
Actually, there are people worldwide now making money out of "locomotor biomechanics", if you please! Usually they start out as vets and then go onto more and more arcane studies of equine anatomy/conformation/locomotion.

It's a very interesting area of work, including much research into looking at how faulty conformation not only compromises best effort, but can also lead to injuries, some of them career-finishing and sometimes fatal. Thus, breeders should always be trying not just for best speed or stamina or soundness, but for correcting conformational faults in their bloodstock, and breeding for well-angled shoulders (which dictate how the horse will move - the typical 45-degree angle being considered best for a free-ranging stride, the sharper angle resulting in a more upright stance and thus a choppy stride and a high-held head), good hocks, where the rear-end drive will come from, and short cannon bones (the 'shin' between the knee and fetlock or, as Americans say, the ankle). It's looking that years of anatomising horses shows that the old adage of short cannon bones pointing to strength (of bone and tensile strength of tendons and ligaments) was indeed correct, with the longer-boned horses suffering more strains, probably due to torque stressors or weaker ligaments.

Actually, there are a lot of people specialising in locomotor biomechanics re human athletes, too, although we're not quite at the stage of breeding specifically for enhanced performances based on anatomy! But give it time...
 
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Wow - you must have some seriously advanced software, M! We've come a long way from the old Myberg (?) photos, but they were 'the thing' in their time. Once you get into it, you're amazed by how many variations there are to a walk, let alone a gallop.

I'm interested in it in my very simple and amateurish way re jumping, too. Since finding the term 'ventroflexion' I've been noticing how many are jumping in the 'deer' or 'buck' position the Americans term it, with backs concave and heads up. That does seem to lead to the horse landing fairly heavily, as near to on all four as poss, and losing impetus. Never mind that it's chasing and not showjumping - the right posture gets the job done better!
 
Not really advanced. It's just gait analysis taken a little further. Hook up the horse with sensors, video it moving and then use the software to analyse it's movement (and in our case compare it to siblings/parents)

Something like this:
lab16.jpg


To the jumping side - I guess even with NH you want some bascule rather than ventroflexion (which would automatically over laod the shoulder and stifle on landing). They can bascule without being overly clean/flashy jumpers - good speed horses for SJing have a similar style to a decent chaser over the fence without the standoff before takeoff!
 
That's very interesting stuff there, M - must cost a few squidlets. I'd love to see any writing-up on using it and any visible results. Mmm, I wouldn't want quite the amount of back rounding showjumpers use, but some parabola than a flat line! Has anyone studied jump styles and analysed any proclivity for, say, a certain sire to produce better-styled animals? I would not want to be backing something that v'flexed when tiring - perhaps it is an anatomical weakness showing up, or perhaps it's part poor initial schooling, as in not correcting v/f habits?

Anatomy's effect on locomotion, and its effect on performance, cannot be stressed enough if one hopes to compete in any equine field - I think this first dawned on me shortly after my 13th birthday, when my first pony, an ex-South African ranch beast nicknamed 'Hippo' (in his glory he'd have passed!) showed the problem of a very front-heavy physique. We fell more times than I care (or can) remember, at the trot, the gallop, and landing over jumps. Kerrrrr-ash! Don't worry folks, it's just Jon and the hippo falling over again! It didn't turn me into a nervous rider, just a very frustrated one, for 18 months. He was all right just walking around and did have an incredibly fast comfortable trot - the only downside being that at some point you were likely to be decked!
 
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Miesque said:
Not really advanced. It's just gait analysis taken a little further. Hook up the horse with sensors, video it moving and then use the software to analyse it's movement (and in our case compare it to siblings/parents)

Something like this:
lab16.jpg


To the jumping side - I guess even with NH you want some bascule rather than ventroflexion (which would automatically over laod the shoulder and stifle on landing). They can bascule without being overly clean/flashy jumpers - good speed horses for SJing have a similar style to a decent chaser over the fence without the standoff before takeoff!
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Bloody be great if they could do this with Frankel!
 
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