That wonderful "tincture of time"

Proper "legging up" requires patience, miles-and timeCollagen-based structural organs of the horse include bone, cartilage, ligaments, tendons, and fascia (the elastic material that covers muscles and holds the internal organs in place). All are "plastic," meaning they can be conditioned over time to withstand increasing stress in the form of concussion, bending, twisting and torquing forces, and stretching. However, the strengthening of collagen-based structures requires more time and more of the right kind of exercise than does muscle fitness. In this aspect of athletic fitness, the common Thoroughbred conditioning protocol falls woefully short.
The training regimens of human Olympic athletes recognize the need for extensive structural strength development before maximal muscular effort is attempted. Human coaches have long known that elite athletes with superior acquisition will come to speed very quickly if allowed to do so, and this "early speed" often results in a failure of the structural components-shin splints, torn Achilles tendons, ruptured hamstrings, stress fractures, sprained ankles, rotator cuff injuries, or arthritic joints. Sound familiar?
The solution, as far as human athletes are concerned, is a conditioning protocol that begins with a mileage base, long and slow moves through a very gradual introduction to speed while developing the cardiovascular system, and finishes with race-specific, high-intensity exercise. This sounds similar to our conventional Thoroughbred protocol, but in humans the process is measured in terms of years, not days. Humans, who run at less than half the speed of horses, exercise 10-to-20 times the weekly mileage at all stages of conditioning.

Long to short
Collagen-based structures respond to both duration and intensity of exercise. This is as true for bone as it is for tendons, ligaments, cartilage, and fascia. There are hundreds of studies to this effect, covering the gamut of mammalian species from rats to humans. Since intense exercise is far more likely to cause structural overload and failure, it is logical that distance work at slower rates should precede shorter, intense work.
Thus it is that human athletes, even though they are eventually destined for sprinting careers, always move from longer, slower workouts to shorter, faster ones. In contrast, our Thoroughbreds train with short, fast breezes in the beginning, then attempt to stretch out to longer, slower works. In many cases, they do not experience the actual racing distances until race day. Exercise physiologists cite that the lack of a mileage foundation-a relatively sudden introduction to speed after minimal cardiovascular development, and a backward approach to sustained speed-begs for structural failure due to lack of structural strength, compounded by metabolic fatigue as the animals are "stretched."

Over the past 17 years, I've encountered at least 1,001 "reasons" why anything other than the conventional training process will not work with Thoroughbreds. Here are a few:

1. 1) Thoroughbreds are not human and therefore cannot be trained like humans.
2. 2) If horses are breaking down galloping two miles a day and breezing three-eighths of a mile, things would be a lot worse galloping six miles a day and breezing miles.
3. 3) The economics of the backstretch won't allow proper conditioning.
4. 4) Well-bred "elitist" horses don't require much training at all.
   
5. 5) A horse has 15,000 strides in him before his legs fracture.
   

Let me attack these myths one at a time:

1. 1) Thoroughbreds certainly are not human and there are some differences in the biomechanics of their performance profiles. Otherwise, their bodies respond to conditioning in exactly the same way as those of humans, rats, dogs, elephants, and antelope. Five decades' worth of detailed exercise research have been performed on a variety of species-research that is now enabling human athletes to set new world records every year. Thoroughbreds use none of it and Thoroughbred performance has remained stagnant. If all you can do is what you have always done, then all you can be is what you are right now.
   
2. 2) Thoroughbreds are breaking down in races and in training due to a number of factors, one of which is an inappropriate, rushed training protocol. Plenty of ex-Thoroughbred racehorse wanna-bes are now endurance horses "racing" 50-to-75 miles a day. Any student of the training techniques of Preston Burch, Charlie Whittingham, or Angel Penna Sr. would understand that young horses need time and adequate preparation before racing. Any physiologist worth his PhD will tell you that more of the right kind of exercise, brought on gradually over a long period of time, will produce athletes who deliver better performance, more consistently, over a longer career of competition. More than at any other time in its history, the Thoroughbred industry needs this kind of athlete.
   
3. 3) Any Thoroughbred owner will tell you that the economics of the backstretch are a miserable excuse for a business proposition. Perhaps the backstretch is not the place to build Thoroughbred athletes; maybe it is the place to maintain and campaign them. I look at the results coming from Fair Hill (Maryland), some Ocala, Florida, training centers, and some California off-track training facilities, and I am convinced that these are the locations where superior athletes can be built in safety, with better conditioning protocols allowed to flourish without interference.
   
4. 4) Actually, as far as economics goes, the "elitist" horses are the ones which deserve our best attempts at applied conditioning technology. A few seconds on a mile lopped off due to a higher level of fitness, another few years of racing due to increased survivability, and you are potentially talking millions in additional earnings for horse and owner-and many extra millions in earnings for the racetracks who can showcase these American sports heroes. As it is, many horses which show exceptional early ability are rushed to the races before their structural strength has fully developed. As a result, you may get one hell of a racing machine, but the wheels may tend to fall off. In my mind, this is a squandering of a great industry resource.
   
5. 5) The idea that a horse has only so many miles in him is a myth that goes against proven laws of science, including Wollfe's Law of Bone Remodeling. Yes, you can put a dead cannon bone in a machine and pound it 15,000 times, produce structural fatigue, and induce structural failure. But in living horses, each impact of a horse's leg produces a response in remodeling, and each increase in concussive force produces a response in increased bone density, shape, and size. Every stretch of a tendon strengthens it. Every compression of cartilage thickens it. Unless these stressors are brought on too quickly, overwhelming the body's capacity to respond. Then the wheels fall off.
   

Overuse syndrome
Now, having said all that, let me acknowledge another fact of life: The overuse syndrome. Just as muscles can be overtrained to the extent that they burn themselves up and become weaker instead of stronger, so, too, can the structural components become overused and succumb to continuous heavy insult. This happens when a workload, be it distance or speed or both, is brought on too quickly. Remember, these collagen-based tissues are slow to respond to the conditioning stimulus. If you try six miles of slow galloping on a Grade 1 winner and attempt to keep that up for a few days, you're going to see the beginnings of overuse syndrome. The horse may be fit enough to win the Kentucky Derby (G1), but not fit enough to gallop six continuous three-minute miles for several days in a row.
Avoiding the overuse syndrome is a matter of bringing on stressors gradually. The two general components of structural stress are duration and intensity. Bucked shins are a result of too fast an introduction to speed-that is, intensity. Epiphysitis can be the result of too much distance in the young horse. Tendonitis can result from a rapid increase of either duration or intensity, or both (the combination is deadly). Any horse can experience overuse at any stage of conditioning, no matter what the training protocol. It is generally the sign of an impatient owner or trainer.

Collagen requires time
Collagen is a tissue component that demands both time and adequate stimulus in order to strengthen. It is a very specific tissue, responding almost precisely in kind to the demands put upon it. As far as the collagen in bone and tendons is concerned, a 2:30 mile is not the same stressor as a :24 quarter, and all the 2:30 miles in the world will not properly prepare a bone for a :24 quarter. A :25 quarter will-if it was preceded by a :26, and before that a :27, and if there was enough time between each new increment of stress for the bone to remodel.
A long time ago in Oklahoma, I participated in a study of the cannon bones of a completely unprepared Quarter horse which had been dropped into a backwoods race to "see what he had." Between the start and finish of the race, the density of his cannon bones dropped 20%-right on the verge of fracture. In seven days the bones had regained half of the lost density and, in another two weeks, most of the original strength had returned. A structurally fitter animal would have suffered less and rebounded quicker, but the risk to the bone and other collagen-based organs for "taking a peek" too early is not economically justifiable.
Unfortunately, this is a lesson that I have to keep relearning every time I catch myself believing the aggressive, enthusiastic look in a horse's eye a day after a strong workout. When Godzilla says he is suddenly ready for a bullet work, he's talking mind and muscle, not collagen. Force a little "tincture of time" on him. It's good economics.

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Tom Ivers is the author of seven books on applied sports medicine in racehorses. He has published 32 videos and is editor of Racing Science Review, a monthly newsletter. Currently, Mr. Ivers is a consultant for Windy Ridge Farm in Washougal, Washington, where 40 Thoroughbreds are in race training.