Found myself in a spontaneous debate with my Professor the other night. It was a really good debate, even though I'm pretty sure my Prof was arguing from a false proposition. His stance was that horse competitions should be banned due to cruelty. Like I said, pretty good debate, beyond the parts where he implies I abuse my horses by riding Dressage with a bit and saddle.
Anyway, one of his main points was this figure of how xlbs per square inch over y minutes starts to kill nerves, most notable referring to the saddle. Even when I clarified about the distribution with a saddle, he maintained this.
Anyway, I am now looking for something credible to confirm or deny this claim, at the very least so that I know it. I've been searching and have found one reference that sound like this and the author of this site said it was a vet who came up with the number with no basis. But I want something more credible than a site that uses all caps and inline styling on their HTML.
I'm looking for a credible source that either confirms, refutes, or gives another value for the same metric. Also looking for a book he sourced, I don't remember the name. Think it was called Chronicle of Horses, something like that. I know it had a word in the title that made me think it was a historical book. Author's name sounded European... Maybe. All I'm finding is CotH forum pages though.
If anyone can point me to anything, that'd be great! Thanks.
You better get hold of his book first, then work from there. It is obvious manure, but you won't be able to refute it until you have the study in hand. Best is if you familiarize yourself how the scientific community verifies research (must be peer reviewed, which is a whole process of duplication, verification etc.). The basic premise of the study needs to be set out and the way the research was done must be very clearly detailed.
If your professor is in the humanities, you may as well be talking to your next door neighbor who's repeating something his brother-in-law saw on tv, in terms of the scientific rigor he is going to apply.
If you want to look at some of the current research about saddles, you might try the ReactorPanel saddle company. They may be able to help you.
Can't help with authors name or the title. I do recall reading some hype a few years ago for a European fellow who was a dancer, and used only positive reinforcement methods to get horses to do lots of complicated movements from the ground. I looked up his book, and the sample chapter was mostly him degrading anyone who would use anything but his methods to train a horse. I stopped reading when he claimed that rodeo broncs bucked because the bucking strap was put on the horses genitals.
You may be able to find a saddle fitter with some mathematical formulas about weight distribution. But from a layman's observation, if his claim (xlbs per sq inch over y minutes) were true, all of us would have nerve damage in our backsides.
Human patients with prolonged exposure to pressure above 4.26 kPa (Chang and Seireg 1999), just above the capillary closure pressure, are considered at risk for pressure ulcer formation. In this study, the critical pressure of 15.3 kPa at walk is >3 times higher; the healthy control group shows (Pmean walk: 7.8 kPa) that the horses tolerate much higher pressure than human patients. Although the mechanisms of developing pressure ulcers and saddle sores are assumed to be similar, a possible explanation for the horse's higher tolerance is that human pressure ulcers occur when the patient is permanently confined to a bed or to a wheelchair, whereas in horses, the pressure load of the saddle and rider is only transient and during motion (Herrman et al. 1999).
Harman (1994) correlated the level of saddle pressures with the degree of saddle fit. Well to excellently fitting saddles did not exceed values over 23.3 kPa. Unfortunately, it is not clear whether the pressure values referred to are mean or maximal pressure values. Furthermore, it is not stated if the analysis took into account the whole saddle area or only specific areas of interest. In the present study, Pmax, values of up to 24 kPa were measured in the healthy control group.
Werner et al. (2002) attempted to define an upper tolerated pressure value in relation to back pain symptoms. Mean pressure values of >15 kPa and maximal pressure values of >35 kPa measured at the sitting trot correlated with back pain...
The use of a saddle was associated with a larger contact area and higher mean total force compared with the bareback condition. Mass normalized mean total force for bareback riding was lower than expected based on the rider’s body mass, suggesting that shear forces exerted by the rider’s thighs were not being registered by the pressure mat. In spite of the lower total force, the bareback condition was associated with higher average pressure, higher maximal pressure and larger area with mean pressure >11 kPa.
Is your professor a horseman, and does he even have a basic understanding of saddle construction, or function of bits, or how a horse is trained correctly?
If the answer to any of this is no, then it is pointless to argue
It would be like convincing someone who though the World was flat ,that it was actually round, before that person had even a basic understanding on the universe
It would seem more likely that a horse would suffer from muscle tissue damage due to pressure on the back rather than primarily nerve damage.
Horses have tall spinous processes, which means the spinal cord is rather deep and protected by large back muscles. It would be less likely that major nerve damage would occur from pressure, but small nerves could be affected by localized tissue damage.
Moderate (non traumatic) pressure cutting off capillary blood flow only causes damage if circulation is not returned to the area for a prolonged period of time. Otherwise, the same amount of pressure that gives a person a bed sore would give us sores from sitting on our sofa. But we move and return circulation to the area, so the tissue does not suffer from lack of oxygen and die.
This is demonstrated in many areas in the medical field. The human heart or brain can suffer a temporary loss of circulation without damage, but the tissues only start to die if the circulation is not returned within a certain period of time. Usually a complete cut off of circulation for fifteen minutes or more will result in some tissue death. But, as seen with pressure sores in humans, the blood flow is usually not completely cut off but only restricted, so generally a position change off the pressured area every two hours is considered preventative of tissue damage or death.
First, does the saddle completely cut off circulation to the area? Usually not, until a somewhat heavy rider sits on it. Once the rider is in the saddle, in order to cause tissue death, the circulation must remain cut off for fifteen minutes or more. Any time the horse trots and the rider lifts off the saddle, circulation would return to the area. If the same principles apply to horse tissue and human tissue, a rider would have to sit in the same spot for two hours without shifting enough to allow a return of circulation in order for damage to occur.
We do see muscle atrophy and peripheral nerve damage in horses that are ridden in poorly fitting saddles. These saddles focus undue amounts of pressure on small areas of the back, causing trauma and tissue damage.
I'm going to check out those studies in the morning. My google-fu failed me... It's finals week. I have an excuse. Lol. No one recognizes my great description of the book?
Being the end of the semester, that was actually my last so I won't actually be discussing this with him again. I may send an email to clarify some errors in another debate earlier that class. Different topic tho. I just want facts to back myself up for myself, even though I know it's wrong. Anecdotes don't mean much, and that applies to me too. So I'm not gathering information to best him, I'm gathering it to better myself, then next time the subject is brought up I can address it with something concrete.
He does allegedly have a background in horses. He said he'd been at tracks and rodeos and dressage/jumping shows, I think as an emt mostly. He said he rode with a cordeo, which I understand is a neck rope. Regardless of what he did or didn't do, his argument was based on a value system, not logic.
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