Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

One thing no one has mentioned that can provide more information about an individual horse's elyte useage and needs is basic bloodwork.  I know here in CT region, at least a couple of ride vets have the ability to draw blood and analyze it right there at the ride site in just a few minutes.  Of course, this would not be appropriate to do *during* a ride, but if you do it after completing the ride, and then use this information along with what you know about how the horse ate/drank, the weather conditions for that ride, how much (if at all) you elyted, your ride speed, etc., you can get some really good information as to your horse's elyte balance after the ride...is he within normal parameters, low, etc.  Doing this at one ride isn't enough...you need to do it enough times to get an idea of how that horse's body "works."  Getting this done isn't all that expensive...I don't think it cost more than $30 last t ime I had it done (can't remember for sure, hubby wrote the check).  But it can add another piece of information.  And if there's a question as to whether the horse needed more elytes than he was given, there's nothing like "taking a peek inside" to see what's going on...it can take some of the "guesswork" out of things.  Less need to sit around and think, "He would have done better if I had elyted him more often/higher doeses/started preloading, whatever" or "He's not in elyte deficit and doesn't need to be elyted...it's probably something else that caused him to perform less than ideally."  Just one more piece of the puzzle, and one that has some hard numbers to look at that can help.

 

Dawn in East Texas