Interesting fact: humans are well built for shedding excess heat, which is a limiting factor in long races. It is possible under the right weather conditions for a man to outrun a horse.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon
It’s often fairly close between human and horse
I am also a long distance runner with ultra marathons under my belt and I believe that humans are great at sustained long distance. Anything can sprint fast for a short distance, but it requires a unique combination of human qualities to sustain medium speed over great distances.
On a related note, I've speculated for years that tongues play a major cooling role for whales. These are highly vascularised structures which can be exposed to tremendous water flows (for effective thermal transfer). The animals otherwise have an immense metabolism, and are largely quite well insulated by blubber. And of course cannot effectively sweat. Even if the usual problem is heat retention, highly-energetic activities (long-distance migration, escape from or combat with predators, feeding activities) might result in excess heat which needs to be shed quickly. As a long-time swimmer myself I've experienced overheating even in relatively cool waters (for humans) and the challenges in reducing core temps. There have been multiple cases of open-water swimmers overheating and even dying swimming in warm temperatures (several in the middle-east over the past decade or so).
I'd just written that I'd found no scientific literature discussing this when I attempted another search (using FastGPT from Kagi, which I'm finding quite useful for this sort of thing). And lo! Two hits:
"Thermoregulation in the mouths of feeding gray whales" (1997) <https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9353198/> doi: 10.1126/science.278.5340.1138.
"The blood vessel network in the tongues of gray whales precools blood to avoid heat loss via counter-current heat exchange." <https://asknature.org/strategy/lingual-rete-precools-blood/>
This actually discusses structures of the tongue which reduce thermal transfer, but also specifically addresses the characteristics of the tongue which make it effective at thermal transfer:
Baleen whales such as the gray whale move huge quantities of cold ocean water through their very large mouths and across the filtering surface of the baleen. The tongue of a whale can represent as much as 5% of its total body surface area. The whale’s body is well insulated with blubber but not the tongue. Thus, to avoid losing too much of its body heat to the cold water passing through its mouth, the gray whale’s tongue has the largest counter-current heat exchanger yet described.
I feel vindicated!
"When Horses Posed a Public Health Hazard" (2008):
The horses posed another sanitation problem when they dropped dead — sometimes from overwork, sometimes from disease...
<https://archive.nytimes.com/cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/...>
Similar concerns were key in the formation of the SPCA in Britain and the United States:
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSPCA>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_for_the_Preve...>
The legend that concerns over animal welfare inspired creation of San Francisco's cable cars ... seems unfounded:
Many people have heard the story of Andrew Hallidie inventing the cable car after seeing horses slip and fall to their death on the hilly cobblestones of San Francisco. The story feels right—as an animal lover, Hallidie went on to found the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals—and has achieved mythical status in San Francisco.
But it’s not true.
Hallidie was motivated by a much more prosaic demand: making money.
<https://sfstandard.com/2023/11/18/san-francisco-cable-cars-d...>
(Hallidie also didn't invent the cable car, though his father invented, and he advanced, steel wire rope technology and its applications, including in cable cars.)
Hallidie did help found the SPCA, so he clearly had some concern for animal welfare.
you may be thinking of mules, who are famous for refusing to overwork themselves.
further, from the conclusion: "The case for defined limits in horses and dogs is particularly strong" and "... race speeds in these animals have not increased in the last 40–60 years. Thus, for horses and dogs, a limit appears to have been reached"
"The situation is less clear cut for humans, in particular for men" and "data suggest that a limit to male human speed exists, and that this speed is only a few per cent greater than that observed to date. But unlike speeds in horses and dogs, and sprint speeds for women, speeds for men have not yet reached a plateau"
So if human men have this "will power" advantage, why have they not yet improved to their plateau? (which is still far below the horse)? they certainly have plenty of coaches asking and "pushing" them, and many other strong incentives to go faster.
to me it suggests that is not will power that is an advantage at all, it's instead a willingness to do what is asked just for the sake of it. great horses just have a really big heart and they do love to run. that's their advantage.
"data suggest" isn't a strong argument for where that plateau might be. Your argument seems to also omit the application of science to training - has that been applied to animals? Does a dog communicate with his trainer with the depth and accuracy that an athlete does?
Human athletes improve over the years likely because of:
1. better training methods
2. better nutrition
3. drugs
4. more incentives
5. better attitudes and mindset
Human minds are far more capable than horse minds, and so can have goals and make tradeoffs that horse minds are incapable of. This is the basis of having a superior will.
Do horses make plans for the future? I seriously doubt it.
not my argument, not my words, quoted from from TFA.
> has that been applied to animals?
yes 100% it has.
> Does a dog communicate with his trainer with the depth and accuracy that an athlete does?
yes. i'm more familiar with horses, but the connection between rider/trainer and horse is very deep and precise. people build walls.
your points 1 - 4 are 100% applicable to animals just as well
in my opinion, point 5 is solidly won by the animal athletes
> Human minds are far more capable than horse minds, and so can have goals and make tradeoffs that horse minds are incapable of.
precisely. mind, and will, is not an advantage for raw performance. that's why for example donkeys and mules don't perform like horses - they are technically smarter.
> Do horses make plans for the future?
nope. not at all. they 100% live in the moment. they just like to run and love to do what they're asked to. do you see how, for an athlete, that is the almost perfect thing? it takes humans a lot of training to let their minds blank and get "in the zone". we fight against our minds sometimes.
i'm not saying human smarts or will is not an "advantage" overall. but for going fast? not necessarily. it's just not a "A huge advantage" to running.
Walter, i've enjoyed the back/forth. i also really appreciate the things you have done and created, btw. i'm not trying to be argumentative, but i am trying to expose you to how awesome these animal athletes are. really they are extraordinary. they are, in fact, the real-life dragons and mythical creatures we romanticize, and for once it's not an exageration. perhaps it's difficult to convey, but if you ever can, find a good horse to hang out with. they blow people away. even a bog average horse (or a dog) is 1000% the friend and has at least 1000% the heart of anyone you'll know.
I follow Arnold Schwarzenegger on Twitter (he has a lot of interesting things to say). One thing he said recently was that going to the gym feeling great and having a great workout doesn't get you results. It's when you still go to the gym when feeling bad and unmotivated and sick of working out and you still work out - that's where the gains come from.
That's where the more sophisticated mind comes in - sacrificing the short term for the long term gain.
I simply don't believe that living only in the moment can produce comparable results. If it did, why does evolution trend towards more intelligence?
BTW, as I remarked in a recent interview I did, results (for me) have come from dogged persistence, not any genius (I know actual geniuses, I am not at all like them). It's amazing what anyone can accomplish if they show up and work on it every day.
Years ago, someone complained that I had a "talent for hard work", and that was unfair. That's one of the dumbest things I ever heard.
You obviously know a lot more about horses than I do, I accept that. But I have a couple questions:
1. It the trainer doesn't show up one day, does the horse train itself?
2. I've never seen two riderless horses race each other. Does this ever happen?
If the answer is "no" to both, then the will is coming from the trainer, not the horse.
> dogged persistence, not any genius
i saw or read that interview and agree. 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration as they say. or maybe 1% inspiration, 50% perspiration, and 49% luck as i sometimes feel.
> If the trainer doesn't show up one day, does the horse train itself?
1. well, yes, they do. they have a strong desire to stay fit and every day we turn them out and they run. it's awesome because they are so fast and good at running. pure joy as they run just as fast as they can. there are plenty of videos of barrel race horses running the pattern by themselves when let loose in an arena, just because they love to do it.
> I've never seen two riderless horses race each other. Does this ever happen?
2. oh absolutely! they love to race each other just for fun and it's probably as fast as they ever go, without a riders weight. we limit how often we turn two young ones out together because they might overdo it and hurt themselves. it's sometimes a show of dominance, but mostly its buddies playing. horses form very close "buddy" relationships and they legitimately play with each other. and play means "run" for horses. they'll run along the fence line, just as fast as they can go until they are totally winded. tails in the air, loving life. not worried at all about your vet bills.
my perspective is this: quarter horses (which are what i have) are the 5th fastest land animal. they are basically evolutionarily perfect for what they do: sprinting. some sources say 55mph but all sources say north of 44mph.
unlike humans they do not need external motivation because they were just built for running. they do not care about the short term, long term, or any other things like that. they do very much like alfalfa. and carrots, and neck scritches. that's basically it.
as with all specialists, however, they are also relatively fragile and while good at a few pretty specific things, they are poorly adapted at other things. like not dying when a plastic bag floats by on the wind, or by forgetting to drink. their digestive system is primitive and rather poorly "designed". if they get stressed out because a you moved something in their environment, they might die of a stomach ache. horses actually invented aspergers and they all have a serious case of it.
more motivations, more intelligence, more will would not improve the speed of a horse, even if it had a human-like concept of that. just as this article implied, racing horses have likely achieved their penultimate performance potential.
willpower is important to human performance, sure. but horses are not human.
horses aren't overall "better" than us, generalist, thumb wielding, humans. but they are indisputably: much bigger, much faster, eat a lot more, and are truer friends.
Endurance, not speed. Endurance means pushing through the pain. Speed is not about that - sprinting 50 yards as hard as you can is not painful.
Thanks for the info about the horses. Interesting!