Study suggests early exercise is beneficial for Thoroughbreds
New research which analysed an immense quantity of data from a sample of 4683 New Zealand Thoroughbred horses has suggested that exercising early in life has a beneficial effect in terms of the horse's musculoskeletal health and accordingly has relevance on their future racing careers. The research was published in this month's Equine Veterinary Journal (EVJ).
The study looked at the Thoroughbred Foal crop of 2001/2002 with particular emphasis on three key training milestones: the point of registration with the trainer, when undergoing trialling for assessing race potential, and active racing. The number of race starts and the number of years raced were also considered. Horses which raced as two-year-olds had more race starts during their careers than those that started at three years of age by a significant margin, had more years in their racing careers, and were more likely to have either won or been placed in a race.
One of the study's authors, Jasmine Tanner of the Institute of Veterinary, Animal and Biomedical Sciences at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, concluded that "Musculoskeletal injuries are one the main causes of wastage in racing and days lost from training. This early study indicates that horses in training or racing as two-year-olds may have better musculoskeletal health throughout life than those first in training or racing at a later age. This could have a positive impact on their future success in racing. If this is indeed the case then it may be possible to manipulate the initiation and structure of race training to reduce the risk of such injuries in the future."
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