7 Characteristics of a Great Endurance Horse

PerseveranceEnduranceHorses Blog - Full Article

POSTED BY PERSEVERANCE ⋅ 1 SEPTEMBER 2011

Endurance riding is a team sport. The team is the horse and rider and their support crew at the vet checks. The challenges they face are distance, variations in altitude and terrain, difficult going such as rocks, mud or sand, extreme weather fluctuations, time limits and passing the vet checks every 30 km or so. Only the fittest horses with natural talent make the grades…

The vet checks require hydration, soundness and good heart rate recoveries. For the novice and developing endurance horses it is a process of growing as an athlete. For the advanced endurance horse it is a race requiring great fitness and resilience coupled to speed. There are no judges to determine the winners, only the clock ticking off the seconds and the vets giving the nod or not to the horse being fit to continue.

What makes a great endurance horse?

1. Willing and eager, but calm

In my book, character is the number one criteria. The horse must enjoy what he does. The ideal endurance horse loves to run, loves to see what is over the next hill. It must be competitive and want to win, but yet still be controllable. A runaway horse never wins, it will exhaust itself too early in the race. The lazy horse never wins, you cannot force a horse to run that well, and whipping and spurs are rightly forbidden.

In ultra distance events such as 160 kms the horse will feel tired, yet must be willing to go out from base again and again when you ask it. Highly strung horses are undesirable as they stress too much and go off their feed. Endurance horses are transported long distances to compete at rides and are exposed to traffic, strange environments, different water and sometimes feed and frequent changes in temperature. They need to be able to cope with all that, and continue to eat, drink and sleep to keep up their strength...

Read more here:
https://perseveranceendurancehorses.wordpress.com/2011/09/01/7-characteristics-of-a-great-endurance-horse-september-2011/

Points scale developed by researchers predicted performance of endurance horses

Horsetalk.co.nz - Full Article

September 23, 2018
Horsetalk.co.nz

Researchers have developed a points-based system for assessing the abilities of endurance horses based on biochemical and physical parameters, saying it measured up well against their performance in competition.

Mohd Adzahan Noraniza, Lawan Adamu, and A. Rasedee suggest their system could be used to predict endurance horses’ performance in an actual race.

The trio have described their ranking system in the Journal of Advanced Veterinary and Animal Research...

Read more here:
https://www.horsetalk.co.nz/2018/09/23/points-scale-researchers-endurance-horses/

Feeding Honey to Horses

Thehorse.com - Full Article

Including honey in the equine diet is common in some countries, but is it safe?

Posted by Clair Thunes, PhD | Sep 17, 2018

Q. I recently learned that feeding honey to horses is a common practice in some Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries. Why would you feed honey and is it safe?

A. One tablespoon of honey (21 grams) contains 17 grams of sugar. Therefore, the main reason behind feeding honey to horses is that it’s a readily available energy source. Honey’s sweetness might also entice picky eaters to consume their rations.

Honey 101
Like table sugar, honey is made up of glucose and fructose; however, where table sugar contains almost equal amounts of glucose and fructose, honey is about 40% fructose and 30% glucose. Honey also contains small amounts of other more complex sugars, as well as trace amounts of protein, enzymes, vitamins, and minerals.

As an unrefined food source, honey contains more antioxidants, flavonoids, and alkaloids than refined sugar and raw honey contains small amounts of pollen. These differences, combined with the higher fructose content, lead to honey having a lower glycemic index (GI) than sugar, meaning blood sugar levels rise more quickly after sugar consumption compared to honey. However, both compounds have high GI making them unsuitable for horses with poor insulin sensitivity or that are sensitive to readily available carbohydrate, such as those with polysaccharide storage myopathy...

Read more here:
https://thehorse.com/160523/feeding-honey-to-horses/

Deadly Eastern equine encephalitis virus found in mosquito in metro Atlanta

Journal-news.com - Full Article

September 18 2018
By Tia Mitchell, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

DEKALB COUNTY, GA. —
The DeKalb County health department announced Tuesday that a mosquito tested positive for the deadly Eastern equine encephalitis virus.

Humans rarely become infected and cases are uncommon in Georgia, Ryan Cira, the environmental health director for the DeKalb Board of Health, said. However, 33 percent of people who are infected with EEE die and others experience significant brain damage.

“It’s a very serious illness if it is to infect a person,” Cira said...

Read more here:
https://www.journal-news.com/news/national/deadly-eastern-equine-encephalitis-virus-found-mosquito-metro-atlanta/MFL7ggMRuHZp4ybx7Q01pJ/

Michigan finds human Eastern equine encephalitis case

Freep.com - Full Article

Associated Press
Published 7:48 a.m. ET Sept. 18, 2018

ALLEGAN, Mich. — Health officials say a resident of western Michigan has been infected with Eastern equine encephalitis.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the Allegan County Health Department announced Monday that the person was hospitalized in late August.
Eastern equine encephalitis is one of the most dangerous mosquito-borne diseases in the U.S. It can be fatal and often leaves survivors with brain damage...

Read more here:
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/09/18/human-eastern-equine-encephalitis/1343583002/

First Cardiac Ablation in a Horse Successful

Thehorse.com - Full Article

Belgian veterinarians have successfully completed the first cardiac ablation—a procedure used to correct irregular heartbeats—performed in a horse. Diamant, a 5-year-old Norwegian show jumper, came through the four-hour operation with no difficulties.

By Christa Lesté-Lasserre, MA | Sep 8, 2018

Belgian veterinarians have completed the first cardiac ablation in a horse ever performed. The procedure, used to correct irregular heartbeats, was a success.

Diamant, a 5-year-old Norwegian show jumper, came through the four-hour operation with no difficulties.

“It’s very exciting to see that there’s now a way to offer this therapeutic treatment—which has shown great success in human medicine—to equine patients, while creating many new opportunities for the future of equine cardiac medicine,” said Gunther van Loon, DVM, PhD, Dip ECEIM, Assoc. Member ECVDI, president of the Belgian Equine Practitioners Society (BEPS), head of the Equine Cardioteam, and professor in Ghent University’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, in Belgium...

Read more here:
https://thehorse.com/160323/first-cardiac-ablation-in-a-horse-successful/

Endurance: A Phoenix Rises from Ashes

15 September 2018
By John Crandell

For decades of endurance racing, and even centuries of endurance testing by military programs and industrial interests, mankind has been examining equines unique ability to traverse distances across terrain and climate as diverse as the earth that first bore the species. In examining the horses on tests that adequately represent the full spectrum of natural challenges that formed them, we gain the most accurate insight to influence the overall health and integrity of the gene pool. The smallest errors in our concepts in this regard will have greater and more lasting impact on the welfare of the horse than anything happening in this moment in time. Examining equines in tests based on the physical abilities that afforded their species its original niche for survival is more then just humane, it is an essential element for the sustainability of a healthy gene pool as we have known.

Testing that effectively mimics this broad spectrum of natural challenges that were integral to the development of the equine species is not only humane treatment, it is an opportunity for us to develop and refine our very concepts of humane treatment for the equine species. What performs successfully in truly natural functional tests defines humane treatment of equines.

Endurance testing has the potential to afford us vital opportunity to enhance the overall level of happiness and quality of life for equines now and into the future, or it can lead us to the cruelest of unsustainable dead ends, all dependent on the wisdom of our governance of the discipline.

In endurance racing prior to FEI’s adoption of the sport, and continuing today in events outside of FEI rule, endurance riders have been proud to bear the primary responsibility of rating their willing horses according to the course ahead, and all the elements that nature-based tests present along the way. We embraced the full spectrum of terrain and weather because we understood adapting strategy to meet these flexuous challenges of nature to be a core element of the rider’s role. There are few conditions common to this earth that a horse cannot navigate safely and sustainably for long distances, it is largely a matter of guiding our mount at its own appropriate pace through the test event.

Assertions that the race of 12 September in Tryon had to be stopped due to “hot and humid” conditions are therefore deceptive. Such deflective statements only serve to distract from fundamental dysfunctions of our governance system that precipitated this tragedy. Nature is the inherent baseline of the test, and is as inherently blameless, always.

Certainly, it was a warm and humid day, and damp footing conditions on the clay loam soils added to the workload, but these were not extraordinary circumstances in the history of endurance racing. The weather parameters of the day were little more than typical of the Old Dominion 100 mile test, which has been held annually in the same region since 1973; on a significantly more arduous course as well. Furthermore, in the Tryon race several riders demonstrated their talents to be genuinely worthy of the title “elite” by navigating the course in a manner that was well within their mounts ability; a proof that there was nothing so challenging about the day that it could not be mastered with appropriate judgment.

So why then did such a large percentage of the field of competitors, all of which had completed FEI’s qualification system to the highest level, fail so distinctly that the race had to be cancelled to protect the welfare of the horses? We should be questioning the efficacy of this qualifying system, including the fundamental definitions of its levels. We should be questioning this system, and the entire supporting body of rules, for the ethos it nurtures.

During that day of mixed rain and strong sunshine, as international endurance racing fell hard on its face in mud, there was a rainbow. Perhaps this is sign that we have at long last muddied ourselves badly enough to acknowledge that we erred in the path we have taken some distance back. There are no quick shortcuts to the better road now, we’ve tried all those paths. There can be no more band-aid adjustments and augmentations of the current rules. More levels on a flawed foundation does not a create sturdy house. We have run false and incomplete philosophy to its end.

Already I am hearing encouraging realization at many levels that the restructuring of the CEI definitions and rules we need is problematic while we are locked into closely repeating cycles of qualifying for the next world championship. We may need to accept a suspension of world championships as we have known them for a period as we reconstruct our systems, more wisely and carefully this time. We first need to create an environment and a plan that allows us to take the few steps back required for us to put the discipline back on a healthier path.

A Qualification System is a form of Academic Institution

We need a thorough re-conception of international endurances hierarchy of performance levels. This must recognize that current definitions based on completion of races at increasing distance is a very incomplete and unreliable measure of genuine readiness to advance to greater challenges and responsibilities. Worst of all, advancing participants in such an overly simplistic system squanders vital opportunities to instill respect for thorough learning. It is very hard to convince a student to take skipped lessons once you have already handed him a doctorated degree.

This new set of definitions will need to support non-race qualifying events at the lower levels, such that they better serve as educational experiences for both horse and rider. This should particularly support the development of longer distance qualifiers, to ensure that horse and rider development in the future includes experience completing distances in a fixed pace environment before license to race such distances at freely chosen pace is granted.

We need to never again apply speed standards that are unreferenced to the technical difficulty of the course. There is no real possibility to re-integrate more technically challenging, natural and athletically diverse courses into international endurance racing unless we utilize performance standards that are referenced to the performance of peers on the same course. This is the primary conceptual flaw that effectively shut our most established, more technically diverse courses out of international endurance racing. This created bias toward participation in faster courses of monotonous athletic exercise; which focus physical stresses in the pattern of a single repetitive motion and cadence.

Protecting the Quality of Course Design from Ourselves

Great endurance courses seek to challenge the horses with many forms of natural challenge in the day, resulting in horses that are a little tired, all over. Lesser courses result in horses that are fresh in some respects, and yet are pressed to the breaking point in others.

We need to better shield the selection, design and certification of endurance courses from the pressure of other wants of the governing organization. It is a nuanced and challenging endeavor to create technical courses with a full spectrum of natural challenges worthy of international championships. Good organic course design requires a blend of fine art and science to create a test that provides clear resolution between skills of elite athletes while being free of unavoidable pit-falls and traps. This development process is easily foiled.

When the day of the race comes, quality of the course design is paramount to fair competition; to scientific measure of equine quality; to the measure of good equine husbandry; and ultimately to equine welfare. All other features of the event are only accessory details in comparison.

Ensuring Standards of Temperate Judgment in Pacing

We need finally, once and for all, to adopt rider completion rate standards that more effectively honor and support temperance and good judgment in pacing, genuinely recognizing that the rider is the primary one responsible for keeping a horse within its sustainable limits. For a long time in endurance racing peer pressure to perform honorably and consistently, pride in demonstrating preparedness and in completing a challenging task once started, was enough to ensure a sufficiently temperate judgment in pacing. In the high-stake environment of modern endurance racing this is no longer enough balance of incentive for temperance. A firm and effective system of demerit against consistently reckless performance by riders is required. Without this we place an excessive burden on the veterinary control system as the first and only line of the horse’s defense.

A moderate measure of restraint does not effectively reduce the pace all the much. To use myself as an example, for many decades I maintained an 82-87% completion rate in both national and FEI sanctioned endurance races, while winning a respectable number of those races and setting some course records that stand to this day. My own completion rate fell considerably as I pursued more FEI races, and particularly major championships, as there is no chance to get on the scoreboard amongst a large field of all top-level competitors unless you are willing to push the risk envelope at least nearly as far as next competitor. So, when put against a large group of riders who are accustomed to riding at a very high- risk rate, such that their personal completion rate is only 25-30%, even the most careful riders who wish to see the results of the day accurately reflect the quality of the horses, will feel pressured to push the risk envelope a little harder than they normally would.

Without setting a minimum standard for rider completion rate the performance of the race as a fair and scientific test of equine quality is compromised. Instead we have fomented a larger and larger group of reckless pacers as even those riders who might otherwise pace more conservatively get sucked into the vortex. Appreciation for fine skills in reading the mount beneath us is diminished more and more as time goes.

The skilled and temperate riders we should support the most will have no trouble maintaining a 65% or better personal completion rate. This standard would force the more reckless riders to stop the practice of mindlessly pacing to an externally determined winning rate until the veterinary control system disqualifies them. They will be forced to practice skills in pacing more independently according to the ability of their equine partner.

When all riders exercise these skills of awareness and temperance, they will appreciate the more civil character of the field of competitors and will once again be afforded the presence of honor that comes hand in hand with accountability.

The Phoenix Rises

Once we have achieved all these improvements we will be in position to begin examining the performance of our endurance events with the same statistical evaluation methods a teacher or scientist would use to score the effectiveness of the tests they design. It is difficult to conceive this today in international endurance because the results of our tests are so randomized and skewed to one extreme that such detail analysis is fruitless. There is no need to sharpen a pencil to establish that few courses are well matched to aptitude of the field of participants. Good endurance courses, when supported by better rule structure and governance, can be statistically evaluated for their suitability to the skill level of the participants, which will improve the quality of endurance courses both as a test instrument of learning, and as a competitive sport.

A highly detailed “independent” analysis focused on the catastrophe at Tryon may not produce the information we need to focus on most. Endurance racing has been near the edge of such a break-down for a long time. For an equally long time we have had abundant evidence that issues with endurance racing precipitate from conflicting policy at the highest levels of the organization. We could attempt to correct specific middle and lower level dysfunctions a thousand times over with targeted corrections of rules and event organization policy, but new dysfunctions will continue to arise instead.

Most of the ideas I have just expressed have been promulgated by myself and others for decades now. What we need most of all is not just the specific implementation of such ideas, but the awareness that the formative concept behind the rule system needs to advance in its philosophy.

We need to explore why it is that FEI has been so unresponsive and dismissive of the contributions and philosophy of those with experience in endurance the predates the FEI’s involvement by decades. We need to better explore what is preventing FEI’s most fundamental philosophies from evolving. This a matter that is important all equine sports. Failure to evolve is recipe for extinction, and often for just reason. The public awareness and demand for humane treatment grows every day. Well managed endurance testing could be the best instrument we have to generate naturally grounded insight to educate and defend against naïve and misguided beliefs regarding equine welfare.

The FEI needs to recognize that it has an ethical a responsibility to do more than simply act on its awareness of the public perception of equine welfare. We need the FEI reach beyond simply defending its economics by responding to a public that has received it definitions of humane treatment from the entertainment industry, which the FEI is a part of itself. This is a vicious spiral of declining wisdom, a positive feedback loop into self-destruction.

There is no other organization with the position of FEI to champion public education in definitions of humane treatment based on natural sciences specific to equines. It is certainly much more profitable in the short term to avoid the cost and effort of public education, to play into and enable public perception wherever it drifts, but this will lead to equestrian sports eventual demise. If we want to have an environment that supports equestrian sports into the future, we need organizations like FEI to play an active role in guiding public awareness with knowledge grounded directly to natural sciences and the soundest of philosophies.

Though less evident on the surface today, other disciplines have their own growing issues of unsustainability. There is an inherent conflict with laws of nature looming as horses in closely managed genetic lines associated with highly specific athletic disciplines exist more and more in their own isolated genetic selection bubble. They will eventually require more broadened natural references to sustain genetic soundness.

Endurance, current black sheep of international equestrian sport, will yet one day provide insight and reference that benefits the whole of equine sports, all of equines, and even mankind itself.

John Crandell

Storm prompts North Carolina State of Emergency

**Note that the World Equestrian Games Endurance will be held in Tryon, NC on September 12.
The following week, the AERC Nat'l Championships will be held Sept 20-22 in Asheville, NC.**


wcti12.com

by The Associated PressSaturday, September 8th 2018

RALEIGH — North Carolina’s governor has declared a state of emergency as Tropical Storm Florence approaches the U.S. East Coast.

Gov. Roy Cooper announced the declaration in a news release Friday evening as the storm neared Bermuda.

Cooper says it’s “too early” to know where the storm will go, but he says residents should use the weekend to prepare for the possibility of a natural disaster. Some forecast models have shown Florence slamming into land by late next week, while others indicated the storm would curve away from shore.

Cooper also waived transportation rules to help farmers harvest and transport their crops more quickly...

More at:
https://wcti12.com/weather/hurricane-stories/storm-prompts-north-carolina-state-of-emergency-09-09-2018

Colorado: “It’s a hell of a mess”: Sick Weld County horse ignites multi-state quarantine involving hundreds of animals

DenverPost.com - Full Article

Colorado officials think 240 horses were on the premises with the infected horse and were sold to people in 20 states

By ANNA STAVER | astaver@denverpost.com | The Denver Post
PUBLISHED: September 7, 2018

A sick horse from Weld County is the reason hundreds of horses in 19 states need to be tracked down, tested and potentially euthanized or live the rest of their lives in quarantine.

And what frustrates horse owners the most is Colorado law prohibits the Department of Agriculture from releasing the name of the lot that sold the sick horse.

“We all know already,” Old Glory Ranch owner Brittnee Woodward-Whithead said. “I don’t know why it’s a big secret.”

What Colorado State Veterinarian Keith Roehr could say is that a gelding (a neutered male) tested positive for Equine Infectious Anemia on Aug. 24. The viral disease, which is spread by bloodsucking insects like horse flies, has no cure. Federal law requires an infected animal spend the rest of its days at least 200 yards from any other horse if the owner doesn’t want to euthanize it.

The rules also require any horse that came into contact with the infected animal be held in quarantine for 60 days because that’s how long it can take from exposure to show a positive test.

And that’s where the problem started...

Read more here:
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/09/07/sick-weld-county-horse-starts-multi-state-quarantine/

Moldy Hay for Horses: Causes and Avoidance

KER.com - Full Article

August 21, 2018
By Kentucky Equine Research Staff

Cultivating good-quality hay is no easy task and is dependent on cooperative weather for optimal success. Hay farmers must keep a keen eye on plant growth, the moisture content at harvest, and other baling considerations. Mold forms on hay because of excessive moisture, which is why it is so critical to harvest hay under the most conducive conditions and then store it properly once baled.

Moisture content is a crucial measure when it comes to hay production. Once hay is cut in the field, it needs to dry. Length of drying time varies based on geographical region and weather. Humidity or rain will slow this process, leaving the crop vulnerable to mold and fungus. If hay is baled at 12-14% moisture or less, the likelihood of mold is reduced.

If a preservative is not used on cut hay, mold will grow if moisture concentration above about 14%-15%. In addition to nutrient loss, mold growth produces heat. If moldy hay is stored in tight stacks or in areas of poor ventilation, there is a risk for spontaneous combustion...

Read more here:
https://ker.com/equinews/moldy-hay-horses-causes-avoidance/?utm_source=KER+Newsletter&utm_campaign=cd7765a2fb-KER_Equinews_9_5_18&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_0d95781dfc-cd7765a2fb-11166&mc_cid=cd7765a2fb&mc_eid=6283eb0e4a