Watches - Time AND Distance

[joharavhf]

Any recommendations for an eventing watch that does time AND distance? I'm looking for something I can use for conditioning/trail riding and I really want to know how far I've gone.

I used to have the big yellow watch and I'd love THAT watch with a distance feature! Dover is selling the Ironman Watch from Timex that has these features.....Anyone ever use it?

THANKS!

Sarah

[flypony74]

My husband has a Garmin Forerunner for running, and he really likes it. Don't think it would be legal for competition because it is a GPS (although it charts distance, rather than helping you find your way), but it would be great for conditioning.

[RAyers]

We use Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS watches for our XC speed study. GPS watches are legal but useless while on course.

Even if you entered way points, there is no way for the satellite information to be updated at the rate the rider is going from fence to fence. Not to mention that you would actually have to look at the watch to get your information and if you are doing that, you need to be doing another sport.

I use my own Forerunner 305 for conditioning. I only know what we did after downloading the ride profile. While we are out, I only look at time and work on keeping my feel for the speed.


Reed

[NeverTime]

Interesting that you brought this up. I just noticed the most recent Dover catalogue has a Timex time & distance watch advertised in the same section as the standard cross-country watches.

Interesting what you said Reed. I've never used a watch that measures distance, but I thought people use watches like the Garmin Forerunner for running, biking, etc. Does it not accurately measure distances for those sports either, or is galloping just enough faster that it doesn't work for us as riders?

[RAyers]

Interesting that you brought this up. I just noticed the most recent Dover catalogue has a Timex time & distance watch advertised in the same section as the standard cross-country watches.

Interesting what you said Reed. I've never used a watch that measures distance, but I thought people use watches like the Garmin Forerunner for running, biking, etc. Does it not accurately measure distances for those sports either, or is galloping just enough faster that it doesn't work for us as riders?

Nevertime, you are dead on about the speed.

The Forerunners measures everything very well though! However the updating is no faster than 1 second. At training level that means you can travel 7 to 8 meters (22-26feet) which is pretty far if you have to be thinking about fences etc. Considering that we find that riders actually go FASTER (up to 550 mpm at points) on training in order to make time, you can cover amost 10 meters ina second. It all gets worse at I and A where you are covering up to 15-20 meters a second.

So using a GPS to track yourself real-time while you are riding on a course is difficult at best. Figure that by the time it tells you you are at a way point you are about 100 feet past it.


Reed

[joharavhf]

Interesting that you brought this up. I just noticed the most recent Dover catalogue has a Timex time & distance watch advertised in the same section as the standard cross-country watches.


THAT is the watch I wanted but when I inquired about it they said the discontinued it, even though I *just* got the catalog yesterday :mad:

I don't want anything that tells me the distance while I'm on course. I just want to be able to journal - 3 miles today in x amount of time... or something like that. We have GORGEOUS rail trails here and I could go forever, but there is no way for me to accurately tell distance, LOL!

[Gnep]

It depends o how manysatelits you got, I use it on my gallops , since Reed got all my 305s I use a 205, it is even here in the boonies up to 10 meters acurate.
I got a 750 meter per lap track. Using the lap feature, with the alarm, I can realy test how good my speed feeling is, the 10 to 20 meters differance, plus or minus, is not realy taht big a prob.
Throwing in some jumps, makes it even better.

It is a very nice training tool, but training tool only, absolut useless in competition, far to much data and far to small to read.
If used as a stop watch on competition its great, the stopwatch funktion is very well to read, much better than the yellow thing.
On top of it you can later check out your ride and see what you did, scarry at times, or fun, can put a smile on your face.
Like 1000 meters per minute.

I love them

[gholem]

just thought I'd point out that 1000mpm is how fast secretariat ran the belmont. Can eventing horses really run this fast? Or rather - how long can in-shape eventing horses run this fast? One or two furlongs?

In what ballpark do you think most eventing horses would be able to run a mile and a half flat out? 2:45?

Another point of reference - the pace for the grand national is usually around 800mpm for 4.5 miles over 30 rather significant jumping efforts.

[RAyers]

just thought I'd point out that 1000mpm is how fast secretariat ran the belmont. Can eventing horses really run this fast? Or rather - how long can in-shape eventing horses run this fast? One or two furlongs?

In what ballpark do you think most eventing horses would be able to run a mile and a half flat out? 2:45?

Another point of reference - the pace for the grand national is usually around 800mpm for 4.5 miles over 30 rather significant jumping efforts.


At Maui Jim in July we clocked an Advanced horse at 1300 mpm. The average speed of most race horses is in the 1100-1300 mpm for a the first 1/2 of the race with it tailing off. The Maryland Hunt Cup averages 885 mpm. Quarter horses run an average of 1100 mpm over 400 yards with faster speeds at 200 yards.

Secretariat's record speed was only an average over the entire distance. He started slow (roughly 960 mpm in the first quarter) and then finished around 1100 mpm in the final quarter to average 1000mpm overall.

What gets confusing is the need to go WAY above the speed in between the fences to account for the fact that a horse will drop to 300mpm OVER the fence and when you have 30 fences, that comes down to roughly a minute that needs to be made up in between. Race horses are rated by the jockey to preserve the horse, to a point. While at events, in between fences it seems, some jockeys don't rate the horse at all.

Does anybody know what the grand national speeds are IN BETWEEN fences to account for the slower speed over the fences?

Reed

[snoopy]

At Maui Jim in July we clocked an Advanced horse at 1300 mpm.
Reed

:eek::(:no::cry::mad:

[RAyers]

:eek::(:no::cry::mad:


TO make it even worse, it was in muddy and slick conditions.

[sassparella]

Wow Reed, I had no idea! I would LOVE to see some of that data...
Too bad we didn't get watches on them at the AEC's. Lauren is still kicking herself for having time penalties. I'm just glad they went safe and sound to run another day...
Sheryl

[gholem]

At Maui Jim in July we clocked an Advanced horse at 1300 mpm. The average speed of most race horses is in the 1100-1300 mpm for a the first 1/2 of the race with it tailing off. The Maryland Hunt Cup averages 885 mpm. Quarter horses run an average of 1100 mpm over 400 yards with faster speeds at 200 yards.

Secretariat's record speed was only an average over the entire distance. He started slow (roughly 960 mpm in the first quarter) and then finished around 1100 mpm in the final quarter to average 1000mpm overall.

What gets confusing is the need to go WAY above the speed in between the fences to account for the fact that a horse will drop to 300mpm OVER the fence and when you have 30 fences, that comes down to roughly a minute that needs to be made up in between. Race horses are rated by the jockey to preserve the horse, to a point. While at events, in between fences it seems, some jockeys don't rate the horse at all.

Does anybody know what the grand national speeds are IN BETWEEN fences to account for the slower speed over the fences?

Reed

I think you have secretariat's times backward, according to http://www.nyra.com/Belmont/mediaguide/08MG%20-%20Belmont%20Section.pdf
his first quarter was 23.6 and the last one was 25. 1017 and 960mpm respectively. His fastest was the second at 1060mpm.

1300mpm is really really fast. That's 9.2 second furlong. No race horses run close to that. The WORLD RECORD for thoroughbreds at 2f is 20.7 seconds - 1160mpm. Now he did have to accelerate, so his top speed was slightly higher, but the world record at 2.5f is 26.2 ~1145mpm, so probably not too much higher because only half a furlong father and already they are slowing down. And these horses have racing saddles, tiny jockeys and are only going 400-600m, not miles with many jumping efforts. (see http://www.horsehats.com/horse-racing-records.html for the records).

Also, according to http://www.marylandsteeplechasing.com/index.htm
the winning time for the maryland hunt cup was 8:53 over 4 miles ~720mpm. If you watch steeplchase horses go over a jump from the side, I think it is pretty clear the motion is fairly smooth - there is no way the horses are slowing down to between a third and half of their speed on the flat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5UTkuBp9x0&feature=related

Anyway, I would consider getting whatever you used to clock someone on an eventing course at 1300mpm recalibrated. It is too fast to be believable.

[RAyers]

While I don't intend to argue I will let you know that my numbers came from Secretariat's Kentucky Derby Website where they specifically noted the splits during the Derby were unusual because the faster times were in the last. So who is correct, Kentucky or New York?

As for the speeds over fences, until we started this, nobody knew what happens over fences. The reality is that the horses HAVE to slow down simply be the laws of physics. Some of the forward kinetic energy HAS to go into the upward kinetic energy of the ballistic flight over a fence. Thus it is IMPOSSIBLE for a horse (or person) to maintain the same speed over a fence that they had approaching the fence. Given that a fence is as high as 4 feet and has a spread, about 1/3 to 1/2 of the forward energy has to go into LIFTING the horse over the fence into the ballistic trajectory so YES, they can slow down THAT MUCH! To the observer in the ground or even the jockey, they do not have the physical capabilities to detect this transition so the brain smoothes the data to make it SEEM like the horses keep up speed.

We make our measurements using both radar and the GPS watches so I am fairly confident in the measurements. The GPS accuracy is on the order of 1 meter or 0.0000001 error for the system.

I hate to say but much of the speed data you are touting is lacking in accuracy (clocks were not that accurate when Secretariat raced) and there was SIGNIFICANT observer error at the time. The reason it is harder to break records today is because we have gotten better at measuring speed (velocity and position) without observer error. At the same time, the records are only made over longer distances. They do not track short bursts. The absolute measured speed for any horse is almost 1,500 mpm over less than 100 yards (Quarter horse) while the fastest mile ever recorded was 730mpm at Gulfstream.

By the way, if you note that distances between fences can be about 110 meters, it is quite possible a horse can reach 1,300 mpm in between fences.

Thus our measurements are right in line with what a horse can do in very short increments. Our data is being scientifically reviewed and analyzed. We have engineers, a physicist, as well as horsemen as part of out team. Thus I'll believe my GPS/radar system over old measurement techniques. I think track folks need to go back and look at their systems and begin to track the horses at much tighter intervals (e.g. a few meters).

There is a reason why our work is so unique. NOBODY has EVER DONE IT! We are discovering things that were NEVER known. Hence, why we will be publishing this in the scientific veterinary journals.

Reed

P.S. You need to remember that a human can run up to 960mpm per the recent world record made during the Olympics!!!!!! Are you saying a human can out run a horse?


I think you have secretariat's times backward, according to http://www.nyra.com/Belmont/mediaguide/08MG%20-%20Belmont%20Section.pdf
his first quarter was 23.6 and the last one was 25. 1017 and 960mpm respectively. His fastest was the second at 1060mpm.

1300mpm is really really fast. That's 9.2 second furlong. No race horses run close to that. The WORLD RECORD for thoroughbreds at 2f is 20.7 seconds - 1160mpm. Now he did have to accelerate, so his top speed was slightly higher, but the world record at 2.5f is 26.2 ~1145mpm, so probably not too much higher because only half a furlong father and already they are slowing down. And these horses have racing saddles, tiny jockeys and are only going 400-600m, not miles with many jumping efforts. (see http://www.horsehats.com/horse-racing-records.html for the records).

Also, according to http://www.marylandsteeplechasing.com/index.htm
the winning time for the maryland hunt cup was 8:53 over 4 miles ~720mpm. If you watch steeplchase horses go over a jump from the side, I think it is pretty clear the motion is fairly smooth - there is no way the horses are slowing down to between a third and half of their speed on the flat. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5UTkuBp9x0&feature=related

Anyway, I would consider getting whatever you used to clock someone on an eventing course at 1300mpm recalibrated. It is too fast to be believable.

[Xanthoria]

We use a Garmin Forerunner for trails and conditioning, but recently got the free application Trail Guru for the iPhone.

It measures time, distance, current speed, average speed, high speed, latitude, longitude, moving time, etc etc, and does laps, and it allows you to download the path to a site that shows your path on a Google map which you can share with others, replay, zoom into etc etc.

[tangledweb]

P.S. You need to remember that a human can run up to 960mpm per the recent world record made during the Olympics!!!!!! Are you saying a human can out run a horse?

Are you sure? Are you talking about Usain Bolt's 100m record of 9.69 seconds? That is an average speed of "only" 619mpm.

[RAyers]

Are you sure? Are you talking about Usain Bolt's 100m record of 9.69 seconds? That is an average speed of "only" 619mpm.


Oops, you are right. I flipped a variable in my head. Still it comes out as fast a horse over a given distance. Which implies that a man is as fast as a horse, however our own personal perspective tends to dismiss that as wrong.

Many racing folks will dismiss the speed work we are doing as wrong simply because none of this work has ever been done and the records are only for extended distances neglecting instantaneous (2-4 seconds) changes.

Reed

[JER]

Does anybody know what the grand national speeds are IN BETWEEN fences to account for the slower speed over the fences?
Reed

Most of the GNs are on YouTube. The GN is approx 7200m with 33 fences. Another top race, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, is 5400m with 22 fences with fences less extreme in size and shape.

In NH racing, horses need to maintain a good rhythm over the course. If you have to set your horse up for fences, your horse shouldn't be out there. When you see a horse start to lose their rhythm, you can count them out of the race and they're likely to be pulled up by the rider.

So there's not much change in speed over the fences in your standard steeplechase. A great chaser like Denman is machine-like in rhythm.

However, there's another type of NH race -- the cross-country race -- which is a bit closer to eventing in terms of varied obstacles and greater terrain changes. There's usually a bank, timber rails, ditch, etc. Some examples: Cheltenham (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLeXcGzhLeE), Le Lion D'Angers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdO_E7ZU7eg&feature=related), Prix Telopee (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGlxofa1Jew), and the insane Velka Pardubicka (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8ObCD9UvfI).

NH racing pays a lot of attention to even one bad fence in a race. Everyone talks about it, even if the horse stays on his feet and even if the horse won. It can affect where the horse races in the future and whether he moves up in class or type of race (i.e. does he move from hurdles to proper fences). But eventers tend to downplay 'one bad fence' if the rest of the course goes well. In fact, a horse who slithers over a fence, banks the top of something, etc can be hailed as a 'catty' hero. I find this difference really interesting and wonder if we shouldn't be more like NH in this regard.

[Gnep]

My mare Harlekin was a Quarter Apendix. She needed a very slow star for the chase, around 500after the 3 or 4 jump she would be fine. She would require a constant slow acceleration, the last 500 meter were always at 1000 to 1100 mpm. She would recover nicely afterwards and was than perfectly ready for X-C.

I have to admit that I had a little fun with my Warmblood Mare Nymphe at the Cocconino HT, doing Training, we clocked her at 1100, UPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPSSSSSSSSSSSSS.
My other mare ( Trakehner ) had a bucking fit during steeplechase, it cost serious time, we clocked her down the stretch at 980 and I was holding her back.
Those speeds are nothing out of the ordinary

[RAyers]

JER,

Quite true! But, as you know rhythm does not equate to the same speed. A horse or person can simply adjust the stride length. They keep the same rhythm while adjusting the speed.

I will have to work out the physics but the general idea is that the kinetic energy from the gallop has to be converted to potential energy in lifting the body of the horse and rider to a certain height over the fence. Since the mass of the system does not change, the velocity has to. Since velocity is a second order term, changing the velocity is automatically a square of the change (e.g. a 4mpm change results in a 16 fold change in energy). Thus if the energy needed to clear a fence is sufficient a halving of the velocity is not out of the question.

We saw this with Bruce Davidson Sr's profile at the same competition. He was dead flat at 800mpm between fences but even the fly fences were at 300mpm in the air and we know Bruce was NOT pulling at those.

Reed

[Hilary]

Wow, that's really interesting that air-speed over the fence cuts the time so dramatically - not only do we slow down before/after the fence, jumping it cuts into the time too. So any course with more fences over less distance will be much harder to make time.

sorry, Sarah, to hijack your thread so much - glad to see you back! I'm sorry you lost Dancer, but very happy to hear about the new pony! Can you believe Shilling's daughter is 8??


Secretariat baffled more than one person with his speeds - he DID accelerate at the end of his races, often posting faster times at the end of his races than at the beginning, and his faster speeds came with shorter stride lengths. Everyone assumed that it was his massive stride that gave him such speed, but in fact when they measured his strides they found that it wasn't always so. He was a fascinating horse, even if the clocks back then were not as accurate as today.

Reed, were you able to collect this data with video as well, so you can watch how a fast smooth ride (like Bruce's) rode vs. the 1300mpm rider?

While your data is going to be important for the science, for those of us who didn't really do so well in physics being able to see a video with commentary about the data would be really useful for educating the masses - washed and unwashed. Will you be reporting at the convention?

[birdsong]

I wondered if the Iphone would do the job..I just got mine about a montha go and had downloaded a free program...off to get the trail guru!!

[RAyers]

Reed, were you able to collect this data with video as well, so you can watch how a fast smooth ride (like Bruce's) rode vs. the 1300mpm rider?

At the Safety Summit we presented video data showing 2 different approaching rides (10 strides out) to the same fence where one was very smooth but appeared slow and the other was a bit frenetic, thus appearing fast. Instantaneous radar gun data showed the smooth ride was faster.

I am in no way denegrating Secretariat but rather pointing out how common perception may not coincide with measurments. Nobody will ever know the reality of Secretariat's true speed. We will only know his speed over exended distances that are longer than those between fences. Thus we can not use him as a standard.

Reed

[joharavhf]

sorry, Sarah, to hijack your thread so much - glad to see you back! I'm sorry you lost Dancer, but very happy to hear about the new pony! Can you believe Shilling's daughter is 8??


Thanks Hilary. I've been meaning to write you offline and time always gets the best of me!!!!

I can't believe Star is 8, but then again, I couldn't believe it had been 7 years since I had seriously ridden, either! Now I have my 3 year old mare and a 6 year old gelding, LOL.....Two babies, eeek. What was I thinking?!?!

Hijacking my very own thread, LOL!!!!!

[Gnep]

Every galloping stride is an acceleration, while the horse is in the air and not pushing it will slightlu decelerate, same as above jumps, a jump is nothing but like throwing a ball it is the fastest when it leaves the hand and than consitently decelerates. its simple physiks.

I did some frame by frame analysis of crashes, interestingly the ones were people, eye witnesses, gave to protocoll that to fast riding befor the jump, with speed estimates, were actually the slower approaches and the one considered slow were the fast approaches.

AT was going between 580 to 650 at the Olympics when she lawn darted, the differance is in the asumed stride length of the horse.

Whats her name at Rolex, the speed quenn, was under 550, when she did her circus number.

But both rider did the same thing in the last second and both horses reacted the same way, interesting, or ?

Afriend of mine watched my Woman coming down the stretch at Cocconino, he is a 4 star guy, and thought she was slow, when he saw the data from the GPS, he was amazed.

Because of what eyewitnesses think they are seeing and they are 99% wrong, the study that Reed and John are doing is so important and needs all the support possible.

If it were for me, every rider at 1 star and above, or prelim and above, should have a GPS.

4 GPS per show and you can do every rider and get real live data when they crash.

Or if I could lay hands on every video shot of crashes, I could give a frame by frame protocol of the crash and the cause of the crash.
Or if around I can do the same based on the horses tracks. I think I am the only one who did that with the deadly crash at Trojan - water, I wrote it down, still got the protocol, was a pretty clear cut case.

That was now a real high jack, sorry

[joharavhf]

Where does it say in the rules that you can't use a watch with GPS???? I just went through the rules and didn't see *anything* about watches? Help me out here guys. I want to get a watch but I want to be able to use it in competition as well :D

[birdsong]

Hmmm...so I downloaded trackguru as another poster mentioned and its great so far....there is a forum at their site with others who use it riding. Can't wait to give it a try on the trails...it also downloads to Google Earth. And the price is right...FREE

[Hilary]

Well I think an unbalanced horse will often look a lot faster than a balanced horse.

I've timed stadium and noticed that the horses that appeared fast were the ones with time faults. The steady, but slower-appearing rounds were always well within the time. I think the same would apply for XC. So again, educating our eyes to speed is going to be crucial.