RE: Re: Of a handful of dates and Arabians

["Corbelletta, Antonio" <Antonio_Corbelletta@affymetrix.com>]

The whole desert Arabian thing is highly romanticized, I remember reading a
book on the English that when to Arabia and first saw the Arabian horses.
They were appalled at the horrible condition they were in and the horrible
conditions that they were kept in.  Even the at the best studs.  Thank God
they were better horsemen/women to know good horse flesh and rescued some of
the breeding stock to bring back to the world.
My vision of the the Arab war horses is that they were ridden into battle
and the the ones that did survive were probably eaten after anyway.
Tony 

-----Original Message-----
From: Susan Garlinghouse [mailto:suendavid@worldnet.att.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2001 5:51 AM
To: ridecamp@endurance.net
Subject: RC: Re: Of a handful of dates and Arabians


>Does it make sense or is it a romantic notion?  How much nutrition is in a
handful of dates?   Would it be enough to sustain a hardworking horse?


A handful of dates has about the same energy (calories) as about a pound of
hay.  A cup of water is about what a hard working horse would sweat out in a
few minutes at maximal sweat rates.  Do the math.  Sure, you can hand that
to a horse and make him carry you across the desert, I hear a number of
people tried that at Catoosa.  The real question is how many of the horses
actually survived afterwards?
 
Highly, *highly* romanticized notion.  At least if you're imagining the
horses did that for very long, or survived without major damage.
 
Susan G