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RE: [RC] [RC] Study on electrolyte/ulcers - heidiAll things in moderation - including moderation. A lot of how one electrolytes depends on how fast you are riding (a 7:30 target for a 100 is a much different beast than a 7:30 target for a 50), where your are riding the varmint. The individual horse probably has more to do with it than any hard and fast rule - know your horse and know what makes sense for your horse. Indeed. But then there are those who do the fast 100s without or with minimal e-lytes--see the post about the French team. (My own personal best is 8:46--guess I'm a real piker...) Electrolytes are lost in copious amounts by horses in endurance rides. Electrolytes are essential and are not stored in the system. Do the math. Your first statement is true. The first half of your second statement is true. It is misleading statements such as the second half of your second statement that get folks in trouble. While it is true that horses do not store e-lytes once they have been absorbed, a good endurance horse will consume 35-40 lbs of hay in a 24-hour period. Additionally, what he is processing in his hindgut is what he ate two days ago--so he has twice that amount on board. Yes, please, do the math--take the best of the e-lyte studies, and compare them to the e-lyte levels in 35 lbs of good grass hay. There are more e-lytes in just one day's worth of hay than he loses in a 100-mile ride. So while he technically does not have e-lyte storage "in his system" he is indeed packing around a considerable reserve, which he can tap as long as he continues to eat. I've done the math--over and over again--and it is obvious why our horses that are not e-lyted generally do not need to be. What goes wrong is when the energy levels drop to the point that he can no longer transport specific ions across cell membranes. THEN he gets into what SEEMS to be e-lyte difficulty--but it isn't that at all. Of course, if he doesn't go into the ride with a good hindgut fill, he does not have the e-lyte reserve. But then he doesn't have an energy reserve, either. So when you just throw more and more e-lytes at him, you may actually do more harm than good. There are certainly some special cases--horses who thump, etc. Most of those are not due to the main e-lytes (Na+, K+, and Cl-) but are instead due to calcium or magnesium. Some of those horses DO need those specific e-lytes added--but many (particularly the ones who need calcium) also do better with proper dietary management--such as a low-calcium diet in training to stimulate calcitonin production and then some higher-calcium feeds (ie alfalfa) at rides. A chronic thumper is a horse with a basic handicap, and if you are bound and determined to do the sport on such a horse, you MAY be able to manage him. But that doesn't mean that the population at large needs what he needs, any more than a sound person needs a crutch, simply because his neighbor with a broken leg needs one. Heidi =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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