Biorhythm

The horse's biorhythm graph, in full size. Its title carries the horse's name, and it is a read-only window.

What it shows is not the same thing depending on the world, and the difference is a fundamental one.

On Almina and Bezir: one curve, the immediate past

One single series, that of resistance, plotted hour by hour over the last 48 hours. The values go from −1.2 to +1.2.

That curve is regular and periodic: it is written into the horse, and neither its races nor its ordinary training distort it.

On the other hand, 48 hours only show a piece of the cycle, and that has to be known before drawing conclusions. The period is not the same for all horses: it goes from a few days to a fortnight. On a horse with a long cycle, two days of graph say nothing more than a slope.

Hence the right method: note the biorhythm down for one or two weeks. The record then gives you the days on which to enter, and it stays valid as long as the curve does. That is the whole point: you can choose the moment.

What can wipe out your record

The intensive training course draws an entirely new curve. It is the only thing that touches it, but it is radical: the new curve has no relation to the old one, and all your observation work has to be done again. The minimum delay between two courses being a fortnight, a horse worked that way never has a known biorhythm for very long.

The trap is that the course is triggered by the trainer and paid for by the owner. If you have patiently mapped your horse's cycle, tell your trainer: he has no way of guessing it. And if you are the trainer, ask beforehand — that too is why you should ask. See training.

Horses are not equal there either. Some never go above zero, others never below — and a gelding's biorhythm never goes below zero, its troughs being turned into peaks. See Neuter.

On Chorus: two curves, and a story

Two series, speed and resistance. And they follow no cycle: each point is an event in the horse's life — a training session, a race, a test —, taken in order. The horizontal axis is therefore not time but the succession of what it has been made to do.

This graph reads like a management report. A rising slope means that the rides and the training sessions are well judged; a falling slope, that it is being pushed too hard or not hard enough. Nothing is periodic, so there is nothing to wait for: everything has to be brought about. See Jockey — My races.

What it changes in your decisions

On Almina and Bezir, the biorhythm is a calendar constraint: the horse is what it is, you choose the day. On Chorus, it is a result: the day matters less, it is your management of the previous weeks that has decided the horse's form.

A horse that is not yet born has no biorhythm: it is only discovered at birth, and it is not inherited. See The horses.