Re: Carbs - only part of the picture

[K S Swigart <katswig@deltanet.com>]

On Tue, 23 Jun 1998 Tivers@aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 98-06-23 21:16:49 EDT, CMKSAGEHIL writes:
> 
> << Sure points up the differences in feeding racehorses vs. endurance horses,
> and why we can't always extrapolate information from anaerobic athletes to use
> for aerobic athletes...
>  
>  Heidi >>
> 
> I think, in general, endurance horses are smaller in stature that racehorses.
> Also, there are a lot of racehorses that are fed no more than Truman's horses.
> Cheap claimers, mainly. The first thing to go in a starving stable is the
> horse's nutrition.

Some of this may also have to do with the way the horse's are raised.
Heidi mentioned that "selecting for easy-keepers" is omething to keep in
mind when chooisng and endurance mount, but I have found that easy keepers
are raised, not born.

There is an old (27) QH gelding at my place who has lived his entire life
in the hills of Southern California, where half of the year there is
nothing but "that brown crap" to eat.  Edward, aka "Chubbie", maintains
his weight in all but the sparsest of conditions.  The two TB,
race-bred/raised mares need MAJOR supplementing as the "octane level" of
the grass declines (just about this time of year).

But, you say, QH's and TB's are not the same, and I would have said the
same too....but Marla, the TB that was also born and raised on "that brown
crap" (race bred) is as fat as a pig, you could feed her a handfull of
dirt and she would gain weight.

I have also noticed this to be true by comparison between horses raised to
be show horses, grained while they were still sucklings, given the high
energy, high quality feed in their early days....have a tendency to grow
up to be hard keepers, while those that are allowed to forrage for thier
food, grow a little more slowly (and maybe not reach  their full height
potential...who knows), and live off of mother's milk and whatever they
can scrounge up, grow up to be easy keepers.

My guess is that many racing TBs, in an effort to make they grow bigger
faster so they can get to the track as two year olds, are, in essence, fed
to much in their formative years and therefore spend the rest of their
lives as hard keepers.

I haven't found that this can be "undone"...once a hard keeper, always a
hard keeper.

I am not advocating starving young horses, since much of the nutrition
they receive in their early life is important in developing their full
potential.  I am still trying to figure out how I can balance "too much
food" against "not enough nutrition."

What we did with Marla seems to have worked, which, accidentally, seems to
have been to supplement her with the nutrients she needed for healthy
growth, without providing excess calories at the same time, so she seems
to have learned to "conserve" calories...or to get every possible calorie
out of whatever feed she gets.

Incidentally, this is also true of Sabrina (the ANglo arab who was also
raised on  "California Gold" and is an extremely easy keeper).

Has anybody else noticed this phenomenon (or had the opportunity to
observe it).

If I am right, and Heidi is right that we need to select enurance horses
that are easy keepers, this provides some information about the "best" way
to ffeed young endurance prospects.

I don't know whether it will apply to race horses too.   (We'll have a
chance to test that out, since we just bred one of the "race bred/raised"
mares to a racing stallion, with the hope of getting a racing foal...and
dit too will be raised on "that brown crap"

kat
Orange County, Calif.