Are dogs and horses trained differently than humans for similar efforts?

lots of hill sprints and drills

Yes.

I trained pacers (standardbred horses) for 10 years...

4-6 weeks of 'jogging up' 4-6 miles/day at 4-5min miles (aerobic work)

2 x 1.5 miles at 3:00 mile pace (threshold work)

2-3 x mile 'heats' at 2:30 - 2:00 miles

They are trained similarly but some of them struggle with block starts.

Standardbred horses do and they used to do even more back in the day. The breed is more refined and faster now and the training has evolved more towards speed than endurance.

Thoroughbreds and Greyhounds are basically trained the same as they always have been. They really haven't gotten much faster in the last 100 years and they certainly don't do "Lydiard".

Their base training is very minimal and they just do single efforts at speed which are gradually increased until close to race distance and then they race until fully fit.

animal_athletes wrote:

t do they react very differently? Is there something else to take into account? Can a horse do Lydiard?

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With Greyhounds and racehorses it is 99% talent. Training is just reducing weight and tuning up what's already there naturally.

The difference between a super talented horse and the worst horse is mere seconds

I have known a few horse trainers. They tell me that running intervals is common.

Mr. Ed wrote:

I have known a few horse trainers. They tell me that running intervals is common.

I they are Thoroughbred trainers they fed you a load of HS. It is done by some but it's very uncommon overall. It's almost always done in areas where a trainer has access to a non racetrack training environment which itself is a really rare thing except for Europe and Japan.

Horse trainers also have some really odd ideas as to what comprises interval training. When Afleet Alex was hitting the track twice a day some trainers called what he was doing " a form of interval training". All he was doing was an easy jog and then a couple of hours later a stronger gallop.

I've sat with clockers at Saratoga's Oklahoma on a few occasions over the years. Top US trainers don't use intervals. I'm not as familiar with euro turf horse trainers and works, but this is the standard for US dirt and turf horses. They perform workouts usually once a week their race season. And they are typically 3-8 furlong distance at just slower than their race pace. It's similar to a time trial once a week at varying distances.

Picture the training jockey getting the horse up to speed for one furlong, then time trialing for another five furlongs, then galloping it out easy for another two furlongs.

Mid-week the horses get super easy walks and gallops.

It's all talent. They don't need a lot of work to hit peak. For decades, the best horses in the world retire to stud and mate with the other best horses in the world. You'll see the same major sires in every bloodline. Mr. Prospector, Candy Ride, AP Indy.

This is spot on.

Adding to say that when I worked in Europe, standard daily training was a "canter" of just over half a mile up to a mile duration on a pre-prepared track, either grass ("turf") or artificial "surface", going slightly uphill. Twice. Always twice. Always with walking there and back and in-between. Only those horses injured or resting wouldn't do it. 5 or 6 days per week. If preparing for a race, they would do as stated above, which was termed "work". But only maybe once a week.

In addition to it being based on guiding innate ability/talent, a lot of horses will just gallop without much encouragement until they drop. I don't know why, and I've been around horses all my life. Particularly if you gallop them uphill and don't stop them. Sure, the more experienced ones often learn to hold fire, but in general you are often trying to hold them back rather than encouraging them to go faster. Having a rider on their backs also gives them more confidence.

Unike humans the real work is done with selective breeding. They don't need to train much because the genetics have been hand picked.

Positive Contribution wrote:

Unike humans the real work is done with selective breeding. They don't need to train much because the genetics have been hand picked.

And one day people will realize that humans in some areas have also been inadvertently selectively bred to run as well.

I owned a racehorse and experimented with what he could handle. Doing two reps was the magic number. Anything beyond had benefits so limited they were not worth pursuing.

Two reps worked just like the way a second rep for a human is often the one where everything works best.

Increased training only seems to benefit the ability of a horse to race more frequently rather than actually getting faster.

Worth mentioning that this old horse once did a four mile "tempo" workout in under 8 minutes and did a leisurely 10 km loop on a mushy gravel road in 17 minutes.

Agree that it does not take much to get these animals to peak condition. There is a great deal of selective breeding involved with equines and dogs.

A bred for the task animal can rather quickly attain fitness given a proper diet, active lifestyle, and some buildup. There is value in doing some longer slower distance, tempo, intervals, hills, but you do not want to overdo it. Animals do not understand the reasons for doing a certain pace, and how to pace themselves for various distances/efforts. Specificity is key. Much of the training that does occur is done close to goal race pace.

With equines, you have to be careful about doing too many miles. They are big heavy animals and there is a lot of stress placed on their legs, joints and hooves. Must be careful on rough rocky terrain. This is especially true in training equines for longer trail races/rides. Its not natural for a horse to go 100 miles at high speeds.

Dogs are endurance machines, but even they can get sore paws and overuse injuries.

A problem with training some animals is they may run themselves into the ground with exhaustion, injury, inflammation, etc. They can not tell you something is sore or aching, and will just go on it until it becomes a major or serious issue. Another good reason to be conservative in training.

A big issue with some animals is their long term motivation and incentive. Long intensive training, especially over weeks and months, takes effort. You risk burning animals out mentally with too much training so they may only be good for a few good races. They may still run fast once they are 'over it', but they will never be at 100% again.

there is a lot to be learned from horse race training.

you have to realize that one mile for a horse is like 600 meters for a human.

so start from there.

and a bred race horse is not a normal animal, any more than a human would be if you bred them for fast twitch and speed endurance ... and nothing else for 200 generations or some such.

so a thoroughbred is super octane, which means you're going to kill the animal if you do too much.

and horses respond maybe five times faster than humans. live 5 x or less years.....

on the human side, in the interesting distances of 600, to the mile, i'm not so sure anyone has got it even remotely right, the optimal training.

from what i see, the quality of rest should be higher, and the quality of the workout should be higher.

and there should be better focus on the actual speed you intend to run. = specific.

relating to horse training, considering all the factors is really difficult, but perhaps maybe only one workout of quality every 3-5 days is the right amount.

but surely you need some volume in between and keep the aerobic engine near max, still while recovering properly for the quality.

tricky.

comment on quality

higher quality also means lower quantity,

for example, i'd have a 1500 guy do 3 minute repeats hard, harder and near failure.

say up a steep hill, with recovery 5 minutes.

which is to stimulate the adaptation to what? 3 minutes full out running.

what about the other 30 or 40 seconds?

when you back off and peak, in racing, you'll have the other 300m

in other words, quality = threat of death to the body, in as short a period of time as you can, with a duration similar to your racing distance, that is for middle distances.

for long distances, without anaerobic component, different, animal,

FWIW many of the great racehorses, especially back in the day could win at any distance from 6 furlongs to two miles.

A few of them have done the Sprint at the Breeders Cup and then the Classic and done well if not won in each of them.

Genetics is baloney. You still have to train the horse to run faster than the other horses with similar genetics.

The fundamental difference between horses and people, endurance-wise, is horses have an reservoir of RBC's in their spleen ready to be dumped into the blood for an all-out effort. But they have to replenish it afterwards which takes more than a few minutes. So no series of all-out reps in one workout.

Detailed article on thoroughbred training is attached below. In short, American thoroughbreds are trained to race from 3/4s of a mile to 1 1/2 at near top speed. Increasing bone density and maintaining proper bone shape while young horses are developing is critical. Long slow cantering sessions are actually counterproductive. Thus, many modern trainers use two "breeze" sessions a week where the horse is let out at a near full gallops for about half a mile.

To wit, controlled workouts at race pace with plenty of recovery.

http://cs.bloodhorse.com/blogs/thoroughbred-bloggers-alliance/archive/2010/08/27/the-ideal-2-year-old-training-program.aspx