Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

So how common is this that runners overhydrate, and do we really need to be concerned about this with our equine friends?  Since a runner has a brain and is an independent thinker, and has had it drummed into them that they need to drink, I can see this happening with a human who drinks for the sake of drinking, not in response to a thirst mechanism.  So if a horse doesn't think about drinking, other than in response to a thirst mechanism, can horses really be overhydrated?

 

Carolyn Burgess

Ridecamp Guest <guest-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Please Reply to: ti tivers@xxxxxxx or ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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> So Tom--
> I thought I would pose a few questions here rather than privately regarding hyponatremia as it relates to the endurance horse. Since these hard working horses are depleting their fluid and electrolyte reserves to varying degrees, how do we practice safe rehydration procedures so as to encourage ongoing high work tolerance, and avoid overhydration? What about the common practice of feeding large volumes of soaked beet pulp? Could that potentially cause a problem depending on where a given horse is metabolically or in his conditioning? Or is it not enough to worry about? Do we tend to overelectrolyte in this sport? I wonder now if I have often mistaken a horse's apparent declining energy, willingness to work and slowed recoveries with underelectrolyting rather
>  than underfeeding, and thereby causing low blood glucose levels. Am I way off? Bruce Weary>
>
> >From what the MDs were saying, elyting does not solve the problem. And their best preventative idea is to have a scale available every so often in the latter stages of a marathon--which is still a shorter race (in hours) than an endurance ride.
>
> ti
>
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