Inside Track Training, LLC

10/12/2026

Great ad! This is a non-negotiable at my barn!

10/11/2026

10/11/2026

In 1976, at the Montreal Olympics, all the horse activity was in the little town of Bromont, Quebec, about 50 miles east of Montral. The barns somewhat resembled Quonset huts, and all three USA teams were stabled together.

Victor Dakin’s stall was only a couple of stalls away from Hilda Gurney’s massive Thoroughbred dressage horse, Keen, and one day I overheard Hilda talking to some visitors. The following isn’t a direct quote, but my recollections.

“Keen wasn’t built like this when I got him,” she explained. “ At first he looked like a typical Thoroughbred. He got transformed into this powerful frame through years of systematic weight-lifting type of body building.”

Dressage training, beyond the basic lower levels, involves weight lifting, through gradually increased engagement, collection, and upward propulsion. Weight lifting builds body mass, musculature, and strength. And with more strength comes more lifting ability, so the work has a snowball effect.

That said, I think that Keen must have had a skeletal structure which could support muscle mass. I don’t think that many Thoroughbreds could be transformed as fully as he was no matter how systematically they were trained.

But I think that at least part of the point Hilda was making was that correct systematic work is similar to the kind of weight lifting that human body builders use to create musculature, greater bulk through types of resistance training.

https://www.allbreedpedigree.com/keen3

10/10/2026

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