Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Yes.  Me.  I really hate to get into this discussion again, but I agree with 
Truman.  At some point we have to pony up and assign some numbers to those 
substances that are on the line between naturally occuring substances like HAY 
and true drugs like Bute that everyone agrees are a drug.

I have used APF in competition and saw absolutely no reaction whatsoever on a 
two horse experiment.  So, if you can't prove that its performace enhancing on 
a regular basis, all you have is a one person observation that APF was the 
cause of her horse's reduced HR.  Not scientifically valid, certainly!

However, I had a horse on which the addition of magnesium to the diet got the 
same kind of better pulse more relaxed results.  That horse needed more 
magnesium than my other horses. Because this horse needs more magnesium than 
normal, to function efficiantly, does this mean I can't give this horse enough 
MG to compete efficiently, since it might come under the rule of natural 
substances in excessive amounts?  Without assigning a number to "excessive" who 
knows?

I will again put forth the argument that most of the substances found in these 
herbal products are also found in pastures around the world.  How can we 
possibly say that the horse's natural diet DOES NOT include these substances 
and it is our dependence on processed food that has removed many of these 
substances from the horse's diet that for optimum performace should actually BE 
there?

In reverse, by feeding straight alfalfa, I can produce an idiot horse that 
doesn't listen for 50 miles and could improve his performance significantly 
simply becasue I can't rate him.  He might come in first - and he might also 
drop dead, but there's no mistaking that for him alfalfa is performace 
enhancing.  Now, putting alfalfa on the list of prohibited substances strikes 
me as just plain stupid, but if you insist on applying a vague statement to 
every available nutrient, that's exactly what happens.

So, if you establish that (and I'm pulling the number out of thin air) natural 
yucca in the diet produces a reading of 25 to 400 ppm and yucca added to the 
diet as an analgesic produces levels in excess of 400 ppm, then you have a 
level at which it is no longer a natural substance, but an artifical inducement 
calculated to enhance performance.  That's a number anyone can deal with.

Saying you might be in violation because your horse is turned out in a pasture 
that has weeds in it that have salicylic acid in them and he eats some and then 
you test positive at a ride at .00004 ppm is liable to make rules violaters out 
of 80% of the membership.  I know my horses are happily scarfing up this 
pinnately leaved weed with little purple flowers that "I" have never seen 
living for 17 years in Poway, but is all over my 2 acre pasture in Ramona 5 
miles away.  I don't know what it is - despite having a fairly extensive 
knowledge of Southern California native plants.  Merryben Stover has her horses 
on 20 acres in Northern California - I'll bet she doesn't know the contents of 
every plant in that pasture and I'm picking on Merryben because we all know her 
as a person that would not intentionally feed prohibited substances in 
competition.

I think that we all have a right as competitors to feed and care for our horses 
using feeds and nutrients that will afford them the opportunity to perform at 
their very best.  I also think we have no cause to be giving our horses drugs 
and competing on them.  The problem is that somewhere in the middle, those two 
statements become contradictory and without a clear numerical line, only the 
people who are intentionally violating the rule know they are on the rwrong 
side.  That leaves probably 98% of AERC members potentially in violation 
without criminal intent.

Alison Farrin



Does any one care to deny that it should be called a
performance enhancing substance and thus not suitable for
equines in competition as per Rule 13? 

Your

Bob Morris
Morris Endurance Enterprises
Boise, ID 


===========================================================Just because someone 
tells you that your horse isn't "fit" for
endurance...doesn't mean it isn't, it just means your horse isn't fit to be
"their" endurance horse! Go for it, you never know what you'll accomplish
with that "saddle horse" or "trail horse" of YOURS!
~ Darlene Anderson - DPD Endurance

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