Research in the east

[Sarah Ralston <ralston@AESOP.RUTGERS.EDU>]

Angie Wrote:

>Wahhh! >stomp< >sulk< No fair, you're just helping the Western riders! 
>Now you have to come to the Southeast and do a comparative study so you
>can compare the different conditions!....>please<

Cheer up Angie! As Susan said, not only are there plans to look at 
our east coast rides-it's already been done this year! VPI had a 
crew at the Old Dominion, as I mentioned in my overly long write up
of my completion (Still wearing the buckle and grinning). My new graduate
student, Shannon Brady, was helping with that project for 36 hours straight.
They were weighing and taking blood from BOTH the 100 and 50 milers. Don't
know the results yet-they are probably still doing analyses and crunching
numbers. Their focus was on antioxidants (Vitamin C and E supplementation).
At the Vermont Pan Am Pre-Race 100 three weeks later, one of my former
students at Rutgers, Shari
Silverman (who is now at Penn Vet School) and one of her Penn professors
and assistants
were there taking blood, focussing on glucose and muscle enzymes and
diet (I helped Shari put together a questionnaire that the participants
filled out). 
They unfortunately did not have a scale to weigh the horses, but probably got
some interesting data on glucose and diet-still crunching numbers on that
data too.

Both projects were basically pilot studies, since neither group had any real 
experience with endurance rides. Since I have ties to both schools 
(VPI and Penn) I am hoping to get a multi-institutional, multi faceted
study (each
group focussing on a different aspect) to be done at both the Old Dominion and
Pan Am ride, maybe even the Biltmore. Still need to get the details set and
permission
from ride managers but we would have at least two scales (VPI's and mine),
field lab analysis
equipment (Penn's, VPI's and mine) etc. Since ride management was
supportive of the efforts this year,
I hope they will remain so next year!

Jeannie Waldron was also talking about putting together a purely research
ride in the fall-
hope to hear more from her on that one (I volunteered my students as
workers and Fling 
as one of the guinea pigs!).

Soooo-hopefully we are making some progress! Sue and I are talking already
about coordinating
our projects to make sure we can compare the data. Next-to find the $$$$.....


Sarah (From Rutgers University) and Fling (Aw, Mom, more blood letting? oh
well, as long as they let me eat....)