reply to Angie & Karen

["navion" <navion@lightspeed.net>]

-----

>>I feel that the CC is most beneficial to a multi day horse, or probably
>>a >100 mile horse.
>
>Karen,
>
>I don't want to get into any discussion of whether Carbo-Charge helps,
>because I have NO experience with it.  What I commented on was that I
>didn't think it was *required* to go fast.
>
>When you say it's best for for multi-days... once more I have NO
>experience with multi-days.  They're few and far between here and I
>haven't hit one yet, so I'll take your word for it.   I think your case
>is pretty exceptional.  You are putting an awful lot of miles on those
>horses successfully, and it's nice that you let us know your secrets of
>success.     ..... Angie

    As a comparison to Karen's horses, we ride with Karen sometimes when she
is in her slow mode.  Our 4 horses did 3730 miles this year including 8 full
multidays and 2  (4 out of 5 days) partial multidays and 3 one day 100's.
They performed well at our pace and never had carbo charge.  They had hay
and grain and the normal vitamins, electrolytes etc.  They held their weight
pretty well.   But at the last multiday we had one blood tested by Barney.
I posted the results here earlier. His blood glucose dropped to 39 at the
end of the ride.  To me this indicates I should be trying something else to
fuel this experienced horse.  Now Ti has posted in the past (and I have
watched these "discussions"  for years now), that grain or carrots or
anything like that will help. Carbo charge is not even his product, he just
thinks it is a way to get quick acting calories in your horse.  So I posted
that I would be trying something new this next year. I will probably try CC
as well as carrots.  We already offered about as much grain as possible
during the rides. The horses just won't eat it sometimes.  If it doesn't
work for me I will say so.  But I also understand that those with little
experience may feel some obligation to try all this new stuff. Obviously you
don't need it to complete and I agree that some experience should be gained
just finishing rides before you start trying all the latest hype. But all we
are talking about here is fueling our horses with some fast acting feed
rather than slow acting hay.   As another important side note.  We had 4
pulls this year in our 80+ starts.  All these pulls were management errors
on our part.  Sometimes there is a rock or hole with your name on it that
you can't anticipate.  But we didn't find any of those this year.  So if you
aren't finishing rides, take a hard look at all your practices.  Karen,
Angie  and others are successful because of careful planning, good
horsemanship and good management.  The newest fad we discuss here on
ridecamp is just 0.1% of what it takes to have a successful season.

Jim Mitchell


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