Happy Holidays With a Free Book from Thoroedge

As a big fan of geography, I always find these things interesting. Above is a snapshot taken this morning of web traffic to this blog in the overnight hours of December 21st. Volume is quite low given the holiday season, but here are all of the countries represented in that roughly 8 hour window:

United States
France
Serbia
Israel
South Korea
Malaysia
Australia
New Zealand

Pretty cool. At one point earlier this year I had counted over 25 countries sending traffic to this small blog concerning the physiology of thoroughbred conditioning. Overall, I would say the largest single country outside of the US is Australia – where I hear they have hundreds of racetracks. Seems that horse racing to Aussies is like baseball or football in the US?

Lastly, here is an electronic gift to all readers. Over the next few weeks I will complete my first book:

Is Your Horse F.I.T.?
Your Thoroughbred Conditions Himself with Feedback Induced Training

Let’s get this straight from the get-go: The Horse is the Boss.

FIT stands for Feedback Induced Training, where internal responses to exercise are gathered before/during/after exercise sessions and later analyzed to determine the 3 F’s: how Fast, how Far, and how Frequently each horse is telling you he needs to go in order to improve with the smallest chance of injury.

Traditional horsemanship entails observing the outer signals (behavior, coat, eyes, ears, etc.) when making training decisions; what I aim to do is teach horsemen how to collect and analyze the inner signs (both good and bad) of a horse in training. Most all feedback gathered from a horse in the traditional manner is subjective and qualitative; an expert opinion, in other words. However, the internal feedback gathered during exercise is both objective and quantitative, a series of numbers.  What FIT gives you is a measure of actual fitness, and therefore the best opportunity to improve it.

Tentative chapters:

1. ‘THE $3 MILLION DOLLAR BOOK’
2. F.I.T. – FEEDBACK INDUCED TRAINING
3. HRV – THE SAFETY NET AGAINST OVERTRAINING
4. SUPERCOMPENSATION – THE KEY TO OPTIMAL CONDITIONING
5. THE HORSE IS THE BOSS – INDIVIDUALIZATION
6. 6 PRINCIPLES OF EXERCISE PHYSIOLOGY
7. HOW HORSES DIFFER FROM HUMANS
8. DIET – FEEDING THE F.I.T HORSE
9. HORSEMANSHIP AND FITness
10. SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND HORSE RACING
11. STEP ONE: SELECTION OF AN ACTUAL ATHLETE
12. NIAGARA EQUISSAGE, STORM, AND PHOTOBIOSTIMULATION
13. IF YOU LOSE LASIX
14. ON AVOIDING BUCKED SHINS
15. GALLOPS OVER DIRT VS SYNTHETIC
16. THOROUGHBRED INTERVAL TRAINING IS NOT HUMAN INTERVAL TRAINING
17. NEUROMUSCULAR COORDINATION IS ALWAYS OVERLOOKED
18. THE PRE-RACE BLOWOUT IS A NECESSITY FOR SOUND HORSES
19. STAMINA – THE MYTH OF THE 2 MINUTE LICK
20. 21^ST CENTURY BLOODWORK
21. A NEW TRAINER’S DIARY REGARDING PROGRESSIVE CONDITIONING
22. THOROUGHBRED ‘MONEYBALL’
23. PEDIGREE IS MERELY POTENTIAL, YOU CAN MEASURE ACTUAL ABILITY
24. RECOMMENED READING
25. APPENDIX A – GUIDE TO GRAPHS AND ILLUSTRATIONS

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Perhaps half of the material is found somewhere on this blog over the past 36 months, but there will be much original, practical, applied info and several HR/GPS charts from horses around the world – including a multiple Group One winner training at Newmarket, England.

Please leave a comment below if you would like to receive an advance .pdf copy in January. I’ll see your email address on this end, but other commenters will not.  You must leave your comment before Dec. 31st at midnight to qualify for the freebie and you can expect the book in late January, should be close to 250 pages.

Thanks to all for the support, and here’s wishing you a prosperous 2012!