Thoughtful responses to stayers' award · 13.02.10

The response to my recent Announcement Champion Stayers Award announcement has been overwhelmingly positive, both in public forums and in private correspondence. Below is a particularly thoughtful response, from Jennifer Johnson, a trainer based in the eastern U.S. — I quote with her permission:

I think there are a lot of trainers that do not take the time to develop a distance horse, and owners not willing to show the patience or the cost of that developement. Sprinting has become part of the North American culture, because we are all in such a hurry to get results. One example is these 2 yr old in training sales. Pinhookers are asking these very young bodies to sprint like Quarter horses before they are 2 yr olds. Is the thought of speed now introduced into the babies minds? Not to mention the high risk of injury to legs. It all starts when they are young. Imprinting. [my emphasis]

Her latter point is very interesting and something I had not previously considered. Asking 2 year olds to sprint so early might make it harder for them to learn to rate later on if they’ve been imprinted with the “need for speed” — if so, this could compromise their ability to stay in a distance race, even if their pedigree suggests they have the natural ability to do so.

In a second e-mail she wrote:

In England and Europe, everyone tends to train at training centers or their own farms. Therefore in no hurry to get their horses trained. I know you are aware of Hastings Park, it isn’t different than any racetrack in North America, from the point of view that the track is only open for training approx. 4 hours a day. Now, there are about 1000 horses that have to train in that time frame, what a rushed situation. If you want to sprint a horse you have to keep him sharp and mentally on edge. If you want a stayer, you have to train long slower miles, with an ending sprint once in while. You want the brain focused and the energy harnessed. How are you going to get the gallop boy to take that much time with your horse, when he can get out 2 horses to your one; and what trainer will pay for the service? … How can we have a stayer when we train him as a sprinter? Breeding has a lot to do with it, but so does training. [again, my emphasis]

In short, if a horse that’s a born stayer (based on pedigree, conformation, temperament, etc.) is trained as a sprinter, that horse will be compromised both ways: not properly trained for long distances, yet without the natural talent to be competitive against born sprinters. Such horses are almost like Konrad Lorenz’s goslings who think they’re people, because they imprinted on the humans that they first saw when they hatched.

If you liked this you might like:

What do you think?

  1. It is in the animal to run the distances in the environment in which it evolved. The promotion of the precocious quick developing return on investment mind set has to change or the breed is doomed, and that is not even addressing the medications.

    — Dr. T. Yatcak · Feb 18, 09:03 PM · #

Textile Help