Re: are electrolytes a must?

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

> Fallon O'Duagal eventer62@hotmail.com
> I heard that you shouldn't give your horse electrolytes during a ride
> unless you had been giving him them in advance. But are electrolytes a
> must when on an endurance ride? I mean will my horse be defficiant in
> anything if I don't give him them during a ride?


Yes, he'll be deficient in electrolytes and that's seriously bad news.
Depending on where you ride, the weather conditions, distance and speed,
your horse will be losing significant amounts of electrolytes through sweat
all day long.  The body doesn't store extra, the horse can NOT eat enough
during the day to keep up with losses and as the deficiency becomes greater,
the more problems you are likely to run into.

As for the idea that you're not giving electrolytes at home, your horse has
a salt block available, doesn't he?  And gets a reasonable amount of hay?
Well, those are where his e'lytes are coming from.  It is definitely a good
idea to get him used to being syringed so you can do it thoroughout the day
in small and frequent amounts without it turning into a three ring circus.
But don't view electrolyting in the same way as you would making a major
feed change at a ride.

I'm just the pet physiologist/nutritionist on this list and I sincerely hope
and expect that the high mileage riders on this list will fall all over
themselves to tell you why you should electrolyte.  So I'll just confine my
comments to the research data I have access to--all of which irrefutably
concludes that 95% of the metabolic problems in endurance horses are due to
either a deficiency in e'lytes or water, and both of those two things are
very closely tied to one another during a ride.  Proper e'lyting will do
alot towards keeping your horse hydrated and proper hydration will keep the
elytes doing what they're supposed to be doing in the right places and at
the right times.  I can't stress strongly enough that if you're planning on
going to a ride more than ten miles in length, and planning on actually
climbing into the saddle and riding the darn thing, you should be elyting
your horse.

Please, please, please don't neglect this.

Susan G