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I was asked this and could not answer:
Does anyone know the full routine of a 2015 thoroughbred racehorse?
When it works/trains and for how long? Does it do interval training and if so how does this work? When and what does it eat? Does it have vitamins? When and for how long does it sleep? etc.
Sorry, so mny questions, thanks in advance.
Value Is EverythingDepends on the horse and the trainer. Some animals take a monstrous amount of work to get fit, some very little. Some eat a lot, some don’t. Some horses work alone, though most go in groups. Pipe would ensure many of his worked alone rather than upsides another horse (working in pairs was common practice at the time), so that the horse would get used to being alone in front.
Pipe is also hailed by many as the first to use interval training, although it’s highly likely others were doing it, perhaps unknowingly, before then (it just didn’t have a fancy name). Interval training is just short periods of work and rest: horses are ridden on an uphill (usually) gallop then rested before they do it again. How many times depends on their individual programme and state of fitness.
When I first got into racing, late 60s, almost every trainer started the new jumps season with 6 weeks’ ‘road work’ – walking the local roads – to harden tendons supposedly. Few do this now, as far as I know, and the advent of horse-walkers – circular cages with ‘stalls’ which gently push an unmounted horse into walking – probably helping with the demise.
Back then we used to mix up oats, carrots and molasses for feeds and a horse would almost always have a full haynet. These days I believe it’s mostly ‘nuts’ – high grade supplements, which makes up the majority of the diet of a horse in training.
As for sleeping, most do it through the night, like us (well, some of us!). Grooming and ‘strapping’ (a type of muscle massage with a hay wisp or other material) used to play a a big part in the work of a lad, but that was back when the lads were ‘doing their two’. Very few have just two horses to look after these days. I hear some have as many as six.
The Pipe book, written in conjunction with R Pitman is well worth a read.
Can’t vouch for this personally but we were told that Howard Johnson didn’t have a routine of any kind. Must say I was surprised when we went to Newmarket last year to find that horses only went out once a day, in the morning. I always thought they went out later in the day as well. Seems like a very boring existence to me [although I understand that NH horses, being geldings are often allowed to go out into a field for part of the day; young flat horses having to be kept apart for most of the time…something that hadn’t occured to me].
Thanks Joe and Moe.
Do find this interesting, I’ll look that book up.
Value Is EverythingCan’t vouch for this personally but we were told that Howard Johnson didn’t have a routine of any kind. Must say I was surprised when we went to Newmarket last year to find that horses only went out once a day, in the morning. I always thought they went out later in the day as well. Seems like a very boring existence to me [although I understand that NH horses, being geldings are often allowed to go out into a field for part of the day; young flat horses having to be kept apart for most of the time…something that hadn’t occured to me].
Do horses get bored
They hardly have had the experience of doing exciting things like going out on the razz, going on foreign holidays or even watching Jeremy Kyle, so standing/sleeping in their box 20 odd hours a day maybe a god send to them. The old mentality of owt’s better than working.Thoroughbred horses do seem to be bred in some way to be quite happy standing in stables for most of the day. When we had our old pony the ponies would go stir crazy cooped up inside all day whereas the throughbred types were quite happy with a nice comfy bed and a bale of hay. Mind you, a lot of them do crib chew and box walk. We’re spending a week near Middleham soon; I’ll ask a few questions [a la roving reporter].
<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>moehat wrote:</div>
Can’t vouch for this personally but we were told that Howard Johnson didn’t have a routine of any kind. Must say I was surprised when we went to Newmarket last year to find that horses only went out once a day, in the morning. I always thought they went out later in the day as well. Seems like a very boring existence to me [although I understand that NH horses, being geldings are often allowed to go out into a field for part of the day; young flat horses having to be kept apart for most of the time…something that hadn’t occured to me].Do horses get bored
They hardly have had the experience of doing exciting things like going out on the razz, going on foreign holidays or even watching Jeremy Kyle, so standing/sleeping in their box 20 odd hours a day maybe a god send to them. The old mentality of owt’s better than working.As Moe has said, some do get bored and find ways to ‘occupy’ themselves such as cribbing and box walking. Other vices include weaving and wind sucking, and it’s possible for horses to pick up something such as weaving from spending time with another weaver. I imagine most race horses are busy in the mornings and see plenty of comings and goings during the day, whether it be people, or horses in adjoining stalls, which would help prevent boredom and the resulting vices.
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