Hi everyone,
I have no objections to anyone experimenting with their own horse(s),
however, whatever results you obtain are not statistically viable and
really can't be reliably applied to "every" horse. One person may
obtain one result, say, his horse gets totally wild, bucks off his rider
and gallops off to Arkansas. Based on these results then, you could
reasonably state that your experience tells you that "carbo loading
results in horses that immediately leave for the Midwest". A second
rider sees no difference in his horse whatsoever and therefore he can
just as accurately state that "carbo loading doe nothing whatsoever".
Who is the more correct of the two? Not particularly accurate and YES,
I REALIZE I AM BEING FACETITIOUS HERE! Another example would be to walk
into your own backyard, see one gray Arabian and one black Thoroughbred
and therefore conclude that "all Arabians are gray and all Thoroughbreds
are black and any other shades do not exist in horses". Do you all see
my point?
The only way you could draw reasonably accurate predictions as to how
carbo loading affects endurance horses is to follow one of several
research design protocols that hopefully omits these kinds of "nuisance
variables" and observes a fairly large and random population of horses.
You need a reasonable number of horses (the more the better, depending
on your design), they all need to be on the same kind of diet, under the
same housing, be exercised and in the same fitness category and be
tested EXACTLY (as close as possible) the same as all the
others---otherwise you have no idea if your results were due to the
substance being tested (ie, carbo loading) or because that horse was in
better shape than another, or because he got out more often, or because
he's a stallion instead of a gelding. Usually, to produce these kinds
of research conditions, you have to have and keep all the horses at one
location, such as a university or sometimes a training center or
whatever. It's not such an easy thing to do, but if you don't, you end
up with "all horses are gray or black" type statements again, which tend
to mislead people and confuse these kinds of statements made from
statistically viable results.
Again, I have no objections to people experimenting and looking for a
better solution with their own horses (being "innovative", I guess some
would call it) and reporting on their results just for general interest,
HOWEVER, such results really can't presented as The Final Word without
some statistically viable work first.
Happy New Year,
Susan Evans