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John Teeter wrote:
> On Mar 22, 2007, at 1:43 PM, Truman Prevatt wrote:
>
> > That's not new. Gayle Ecker gave a wonder discussion of this at the 
> > AERC convention in the early 90's.
>
> Didn't say it was new:) what did Dr. Ecker say about the issue?
>
> jt
That was 15 years ago - you expect me to remember ;-) ? The issues with 
cooling of horses is their body mass (volume) to surface area ratio is 
much larger than that for humans. Since cooling takes place for the most 
part at the surface - horses are at a distinct disadvantage compared to 
say humans when the weather turns humid. Gayle's talk was about the 
results of the electrolyte loss studies she had done. She has a very 
large database of horses and the physics of heat dissipation was 
introductory to this talk.

The one thing I do remember was with horses "it is the humidity stupid" 
is very appropriate since one of the rides with a large electrolyte loss 
across the board was a ride where the temp was in the 40's but the 
humidity was 100%. A horse can quickly run its core temp up to 106 at 40 
degrees ambient if there is no evaporative cooling.

An interesting aside on a ride I ran in '97 we have very similar 
conditions - in the 50's but 100% humidity before a cold front moved in. 
It was a demolition derby. The treatment barn looked like a MASH unit. 
Horses were thumping left and right. We went through between 240 and 300 
liters of fluids - all to treat dehydration and tie ups. The treatment 
vet and I got about one hour of sleep on Saturday night. We sent one 
horse to UF clinic after we got him stable enough to be transported and 
it was touch and go for quite a while on him. He did recover.

It was 8:30 AM - that's about all I recall, except a comment from Maggie 
Price asking for a bottom line formula for electrolyting. When Gayle 
responded that there isn't any - it all depends on the horse and the 
day. Maggie replied, "even after all these years and all this work, 
that's all you can tell us?" Seems that little has changes since then.

Truman

--

“Since when have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to 
authority and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us?” 
Justice William O. Douglas


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