Page 23 - The Game May 2006

Your Thoroughbred Racing Community Newspaper The Game, May 2006 23
TRUE COLOURS
Research has revealed a new spectrum of information on how equine eyes perceive colour.
For decades it’s been argued that horses perceive their world in shades of gray. In fact most domestic animals have long been believed to be colour blind, despite occasional anecdotal evidence to the contrary. (For example, I had a pony who once tried to nibble Astroturf which certainly didn’t “smell” like grass!).
But now there’s one more good reason to coordinate your stable colours. A 2001 cooperative study from researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin’s Schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine has demonstrated that horses do indeed possess the ability to perceive colours - albeit a more limited range than we humans enjoy.
The capacity to detect shades of colour is indicated by the presence of “cone cells”, which are arranged in thin layers in the retina at the back of the mammalian eye. At least two different types of cone cells need to co-exist in order to provide colour vision. Humans, who enjoy the ability to perceive a full range of colours, have three types, giving us “trichromatic” vision (think of the way blue, yel- low, and red combine on a colour wheel to create hundreds of different shades). Thus far, only primates have been shown to enjoy this variety of colour vision.
The Wisconsin research team, led by Joseph Carroll, Ph.D., used a non-invasive technique called electroretino- gram flicker photometry, which measures the electrical response of cone cells to different wavelengths of light, to examine the eyes of six healthy ponies. Different spectral sensitivities are considered diagnostic of the presence of certain types of cone cells. Each pony was briefly anaesthetized and a fine electrode connected to his corneas; his eyes were then exposed to various wavelengths of light and the electrical response analyzed.
The team’s conclusion was that horses possess two distinct types of cone cells, which gives them the ability for a reduced form of colour vision - called “dichromatic” vision - similar to many other hoofed mammals, such as goats, cows, sheep, deer, and pigs. (In fact, some humans also have inherited dichromatic vision - it’s otherwise known as red/green colour blindness.)
This analysis of equine cone cells gives us a much clearer perception of how horses see their world. Previous behavioural studies had hinted that horses have some ability to discriminate colours, but now we know that they can distinguish shades of yellow, blue, and purple with relative ease, but have difficulty perceiving the difference between reds and greens. Dichromats such as horses also tend not to see the intermediate gradations of hue we humans perceive. Instead, when colours from the two ends of the spectrum are mixed, the result is either achromatic (white or gray) or a desaturated version of one
of the two basic hues (such as pastel blue or yellow).
The Wisconsin team even employed a computer algorithm to calculate how each colour in a digital
photograph would appear to a horse.
You can view the photos on the Internet at
http://www.journalofvision.org/1/2/2/article.pdf.
We already know that horses are naturally far-sighted, able to focus accurately on objects (read: potential preda- tors) hundreds of metres away but less able to perceive clearly the details under their noses. Their lozenge-shaped pupils adjust to focus as they raise and lower their heads. With their eyes situated on the sides of their heads, they have little depth perception but an impressive, almost 360 degree range of vision, with only two small “blind spots” (one directly in front of their foreheads, and one on either side at their girth, behind the elbows). We also know they possess extraordinary night vision compared to humans, though their eyes adjust to darkness more slowly than ours do. Now, with this final piece of the puzzle in place, we are equipped to understand much more about how the
world looks through a horseâs eyes.
Equine Health
by Karen Briggs
Dave Landry Photo
Jockeying for Residuals
By Peter Gross
Several Woodbine based jockeys showed up one afternoon in mid-April at The Little Black Book Casting Agency on Berkeley St in the King and Parliament area. It seems the Kellogg Corn Flakes people were looking for someone to play a jockey for an upcoming commercial and the compensation for one day’s work - apparently $2500 - was an appealing lure.
There were enough top-notch riders in the waiting room to conduct a solid Grade 3 Stakes race. Robbie King, Emile Ramsammy, Daniel David, Ray Sabourin, Martin Ramirez and former jock Tyler Gaskin were all sporting huge grins at the thought of trying out for a cereal commercial.
In the audition room, where a camera- man stood by his recorder, the session director Andrew Hayes explained what the Corn Flakes people were looking for.
“It’s kind of surreal,” he said, “It starts with a man sitting at a table, watching the clock and waiting for the right time. He looks at his watch and suddenly whistles for his dog.”
Acting the scene out, Hayes jumped from his chair onto a crate and pretended to be riding his dog as if he was gunning to the lead in a two furlong spring. Then he stopped, jumped back to his desk where a tempting bowl of Corn Flakes and strawberries had appeared.
“At this point, it’s relief,” he points out, “You’ve made it home to eat your Corn Flakes!”
“The writers have created a fairly bizarre situation and inserted it into a normal world,” says casting director Brian Levy, “We see this very ordinary man at a very ordinary desk and then he opens the window and leaps onto something; a horse, a dog a wolfhound, and rides it through the streets, dodging cars, pedestrians and jumping hedges. The point is that getting
to the Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut is the most important thing. Ordinary conveyances are too slow.”
One by one the jocks were invited in to show their stuff. Emile Ramsammy may be one of the least flamboyant riders on the circuit, but even with the door closed on his audition, everyone in the outer room could hear enthusiastic whoops and yelps as, apparently, Ramsammy was pulling out every trick in the book to get that crate to the finish line.
In the meantime, Robbie King was telling me how he worked on a feature film for over two months a few years ago in Vancouver.
“It was called the 13th Warrior,” he said, making a face to indicate it wasn’t exactly an award winner, “It starred Antonio Banderas and I did a lot of wrangling and stunt riding.”
Rocket Ray Sabourin has scored a few dramatic scenes during his career.
“I did a Ford Mustang commercial where all I had to do was ride a Mustang around the harness track,” he recalls. Sabourin says he still gets residuals for a strange shoot that he was on in Colorado.
“I don’t remember what it was for,” he says with a laugh, “But they had me riding a tethered pony that went round and round on a kid’s ride.”
Actually, Sabourin did a little stunt a few years ago for an outrageous spot used by The Racing Network (before they renamed themselves Horseplayer Interactive). This is the one where two idiots, hoping to get some inside information, walk onto the track to see if it’s fast or slow. As one guy bends down to test the soil, a speeding horse flattens him.
Sabourin was the jockey on that horse, and neither steed nor dumb guy was injured. The horse was persuaded to run into a soft mannequin.
A few days after the auditions, it
became apparent that the world of television casting can be as disappointing as the world of thoroughbred racing.
“Well, to put it in racing vernacular, Martin Ramirez and Ray Sabourin were in it right up to the top of the stretch,” said Levy, preparing me for the unhappy news, “but we chose an actor by the name of Scott McColloch. In the end the director
has to choose a combination of performance and looks.”
Not to be bitter, but there’s a few jocks who would like to see McColloch’s performance and looks on the back of a skittish two-year-old loading into the gate for the first time.
Then we might see a guy crying in his corn flakes.
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