[RC] The Authority on Electrolytes: Gayle Ecker - Joane Pappas White
10 years ago, a well known and forward-looking vet who has participated in some endurance rides as an endurance vet but who is also known to many of us outside of endurance, told me that the most important thing that had been learned to prevent treatment for our horses was the use of electrolytes. The direct quote as I remember it was: "I would get adequate electrolytes into the horse if I had to tube them in".
Since I was just learning, as many of your are, I had to experiment with everything. But since I also rode only LD, a little seemed more than adequate. Then I started crewing for 100 milers, including in the deserts, and electrolytes became a very serious issue. In 1998 at the WEC in Dubai, I had the opportunity to meet Gayle Ecker who was doing much of the original research in electrolytes. She ran a series of "sweat tests" as she tried to get enough information on each horse to see how that particular horse's chemistry was handling the electrolyte balance during the ride. She described her project as "designer electrolytes" and my project, growing Natural herbs in my hay, as "designer hay". Her goal for Team Canada was to have literally a custom created electrolyte mixture for each horse. She was a speaker at Reno and gave us some of her conclusions in 2005 and you should be able to find that speech as well but I have located one of her articles for you and its link follows.
I would suggest that those of you who are new, get to know Gayle's work as well as everything that Susan Garlinghouse has on her website concerning nutrition, dehydration and metabolic pulls. It will bring you up to speed fast.
It is very interesting to see the current trend away from electrolyte use now but I think, as in all things, we are going to find that Moderation in all things is essential.
This is something I have never understood and no one that I know of has brought up (I'm the region IX rep for the AHA endurance committee). It says right in the rulebook that all AERC rides are approved by AHA, so why do you need to pay extra and have a steward, and why can't they use AERC records for the results??
They supposedly use AERC records for mileage records, although I still get people who say the office tells them otherwise.
