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 Post subject: bucked shins
PostPosted: Sun Jul 12, 2015 10:38 pm 
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Check out my webpage on the subject at:

http://racehorseherbal.net/buckedshins.html





Personal fact: I have started and raced many thoroughbred homebreds and have never been forced to stop my training or racing because of bucked shins. I never thought too much about it at the time, but now hearing so much about shin bucking, I appreciate how lucky or "skilled", I was. I originally thought until a few days ago that my lack of being cursed with bucked shins in my young horses was probably due to my atypical habit of galloping my horses along at a nice brisk rate. I would guess, I would gallop at around the 3-4:00 minute speed for a mile. It seems to me most exercise riders prefer to lope around the track very slowly, few seem to want to make the horse "work" much even at the slow speeds of galloping. At any rate, that was what I believed until I read the article, "Training Young Athletes" by Sushil Dulai Wenholz from the October issue of The Horse. The basic synopsis of this article is that slow work really does not affect the likely hood of decreasing bucked shins, no matter how much mileage is involved. It says that short speed work is the key. It goes on to describe a training regime that was implemented by Dr. Fisher which I will quote below:

Quote:
"...John Fisher, DVM, a veterinarian and racehorse trainer, set out to see if he could develop an optimal program to use on the horses in his barn. The schedule he came up with starts with basic conditioning. Once a horse could comfortably go one mile with furlongs at 18-20 seconds each, Fisher began introducing speed work twice a week, using a pace of one furlong per 15 seconds, and starting with a one furlong distance. Every three to four weeks, he increased the distance by another furlong. By the end of three months, the horse was doing 3/8ths mile bursts at speed, but only once every 5 days. On non-speed days, the horse was either rested or galloped, allowing time for the stimulated bone to remodel. Over the years, Fisher has found this program effective in his barn. Shin problems have dropped from being practically the norm to being a rarity, yet he's seen no increase in injuries to his horses' ankles and knees." (page 36)


This is all very interesting for me. On closer examination, I find that my training routine was not radically different from Fisher. I actually seem to have hurried my horses a bit more than Fisher did. I come from a harness horse background and we are use to working our horses for "speed", particularly when conditioning, young unstarted horses, twice a week. So right here, I fall into FIsher's specs. I have studied a few old time thoroughbred trainers from the last century and they seemed to work many of their horses on this twice-a-week schedule as well. For instance, speed work every Monday/Thursday or Tuesday/Friday or Wednesday/Saturday schedules.

However, when I was starting young thoroughbreds for the first time at speed work, I would ride them under their accustomed gallop routine, then during the last 1/16th of their gallop session, I would make them "tip-toe" as I like to call it. Tiptoeing is simply just urging them to go at a faster pace approaching breeze speeds. I would do this every other-day which would amount to 3-4 times a week. It is very important to do this speed work every other day! I would then lengthen this 1/16 out to an 1/8 at the same rate of 3-4 times a week at the end of their gallop session. Eventually, I worked them up to breezing the normal 3/8ths mile works, but cutting back to every third day which would be the twice-a-week routine. I would have a "fast" day and a "slow" day in these two breezes. Every week, I would try, if that animal was ready, to drop breeze times down faster and faster on my fast days each week. On my slow breeze day, I would just duplicate the previous time of the fast work. Between these work days, I would gallop 2-3 miles with a mile or better warm-up at a trot. I very seldom give them a day off except when they started going the faster works at a half or more, then I may walk them the following day. They would gallop under all conditions, no rain days ever. Again, the personal facts for me were that my horses never bucked and they were fantastically sound. I never bowed a horse or had other common problems.

Let me summarize, if you breeze young horses as is customary in the USA of once-a-week and starting them out going 3/8th right off the bat---you will more than likely buck shins! However, if you start out asking for speed in very short distances of say, 1/16th of a mile or less and doing this every-other-day until you work your youngster up to the traditional 3/8th mile breeze distance, then I have never had them buck shins! Once, I get up to the 3/8th mile distances, you train them twice-a-week until they start in a race! This program was practiced by our trainers of the last century and should work for our modern trainers as well. Just try it. What do you have to lose?.

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