Re: [Enduranceriders] Re: RC: Metabolic Pulls at Tevis

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

> this ride.  I think that if they had actually weighed all of the horses
> before, during and after this ride they might have been able to correlate
> the weight loss to the horses experience level (since that seems to be the
> case at other rides).  And the more weight a horse loses (hydration), the
> more likely it is to need an IV, right?


An interesting point---Laurie Lawrence from U of Ky measured something like
this at ROC in (I think) '92 and made some correlations that horses that
lost the least amount of weight in the first forty miles also had the
highest completion rate and finished higher.  And remember, this was ROC, so
these are all well-qualified, fairly elite horses (at least as compared to
totally random entries at any non-qualifying ride).

We'll be measuring weight loss at Swanton, so maybe we'll take a look at the
horse's/rider's miles as well and see if anything shows up.  Thanks for the
idea. :-)  (Now see how research really works, we get our ideas from the
riders in the field and then pretend we came up with something new.)<g>

Susan G