Carbos and research project

[Susan Evans Garlinghouse <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

DreamWeaver wrote:
 Did you give any carbos after
> the ride?  Did you notice an improvement in after-ride recovery?
 Now he deals with it better, after figuring
> out on a couple of 100's that he's getting the doses every 2 hours whether
> he likes it or not!


Hiya,

Plea #1--I know there are a reasonable number of people using carbos
during endurance rides and was wondering if everyone could give a quick
summary of their strategies and what seems to work best for them?  Only
once during the ride, every few hours, etc?  What else are you feeding
during the ride, if anything?  What differences have you noticed?

The reason I ask is because I'm getting together a research proposal for
a project this summer at the Equine Research Center measuring the levels
of blood glucose, fatty acids and plasma volume in SPECIFICALLY
endurance horses that are fed differently during a simulated
endurance-type exercise bout, and I REALLY want to include a carbo
product as one of the treatment groups we test---so having a clue from
you guys about what's currently working the best would be a BIG help in
planning this project to provide the most practical and applicable
results when we're done with all the number-crunching.

OK, Plea Number Two---are there a few endurance horses in the Southern
California area (within a reasonable distance of Cal Poly Pomona) that
would be interested in participating in this research project?  The
reason why I specifically want endurance-trained horses is because the
majority of the research in energetics that's been applied to endurance
horses don't actually use endurance-proven horses as their model.  Two,
their "endurance" exercise tests wouldn't even break a sweat of most of
our guys.  To be able to come up with some REALLY applicable and useful
data specifically for endurance riders, I need to use horses that can
trot an easy 15 miles on level footing without fainting.

If anyone is still reading this far, here are more specifics of what I'm
proposing to do in this project and what kind of horse(s) we're looking
for:

Stallions, mares or geldings are okay, any age as long as they're
healthy and sound.  Should be half to purebred Arabian.  Each horse will
have to travel to Cal Poly probably a total of three or four times---the
schedules can be highly variable.  Either I can come and get the
horse(s) and transport them to Cal Poly (possibly the night before so
they can hang out in our corrrals, which are very nice), or the owner
can bring them and we'll reimburse them for gas money.  The horse will
be taught to trot on our high-speed treadmill, which is not as scarey as
it sounds (Tom Ivers will also attest to this, he has a HS treadmill,
too).  We've run several thousand horses on this in the past four years
and never had an injury or accident---the only thing that came even
close was my own thoroughbred mare that thought this was SO much fun she
kept trying to buck and play and outrun it, rubbing her chest across the
front restraining bar and rubbed a small raw spot.  Anyway, we'll teach
the horse to travel comfortably on the treadmill, then put into a small
catheter into the jugular vein, which makes it safer and more
comfortable for the horse to draw blood samples.  This will be put in by
a licensed and very experienced DVM in our clinic.  For the actual data
collection phase, we'll feed each horse a specific feed, either hay
only, or a mixture of hay and grain, or hay plus a carbohydrate booster
product (probably vanilla Weight Gainer).  The horses will trot (without
a rider) at an easy pace that will bring their heart rate up to a level
typical for completion-type endurance pace, maybe around 130 bpm or so
(they'll all be wearing heart monitors)  Without a rider, we may have to
increase the slope slightly to get their heart rate up at all, but this
will NOT be intense exercise.  At some interval during exercise, we'll
stop them, pull another blood sample and let them rest and eat as they
would at a vet check, about 15-20 minutes, then back onto the
treadmill.  At the end, we'll pull another sample, cool them out, remove
the catheter (you'll only see a tiny bare patch on the neck about 1 inch
square with a tiny nick in the middle), and he's done.  The total
distance covered on the treadmill should be significant, maybe about
15-20 miles, but not even close to a real (even LD!) ride and probably
easier than most conditioning rides, such the footing is springier and
they'll be carrying no weight.  (Or, heck, maybe we'll do it for fifty
miles, try for AERC sanctioning and call it the Rubber Band 50---does it
count if the rider is just in the same room as the horse doing fifty
miles? <VBG>)

Each horse will have to come back and do this all over again several
times, changing the type of feed they're eating during the "ride", so we
can compare the  biochemistry between one feeding strategy and another. 
I'd like to use horses that are already fit and consistently completing
50's or better on a reasonably regular basis---this is because in a less
thoroughly conditioned horse, different fitness levels between one data
collection test and the next can throw off the results, so that's why we
want horses that are already at a more or less "steady state" of
fitness.  The horse should also not be having any problems like
tying-up, etc.  If I can get Cato fit enough in time, he'll be one of
the research group and BELIEVE ME, I wouldn't let him participate if it
wasn't absolutely safe and non-stressful to the horse.  Besides Cato, I
think we'll need probably another three or four horses.  I suspect if we
can get approval, all this will happen in August and/or September,
though we can be flexible with scheduling, since each day we'll only run
one or maybe two horses.

So, is there anyone within a reasonable distance that's interested and
game in participating in this project?  I promise, it'll provide some
great information directly applicable to ENDURANCE RIDING, and will
certainly give you a great conversation-starter at the next ride camp
(online or off)! :-)

Hope to hear from some of you soon.  Any questions of course, contact me
back.

Susan Garlinghouse, MS
Equine Research Center
Cal Poly University, Pomona