Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I agree with Bob's comments about "additives", especially during a ride, primarily 
because no matter what goes in your equine's mouth, it is of no use to the horse 
until it hits the bloodstream.  In a horse, the stomach is relatively small and 
accounts for only about 10% of the digestive process.  The bulk of digestion occurs 
in the small intestine.  It takes an average of 4 hours for food to pass through the 
stomach.  Although the small intestine can take as little as 30 minutes to start 
passing nutrients to the bloodstream, the whole process may range up to 7 hours. The 
quieter the animal, the more bodily effort is devoted to digestion.   Trotting along 
interferes with digestion.  The more energy that is devoted to moving, the less the 
body allocates to digesting.  Ironically, the faster moving horses that could benefit 
the most from a RAPID transfer from mouth to bloodstream take the longest due to 
their higher levels of performance.  So bottom line, with the exception of the 
Glycogen Loaders which start increasing blood glucose within 15 minutes of ingestion, 
 most feeds won't impact the animal for many hours.  This renders them useless as 
performance boosters in LDs, not helpful to 50s till well after the Top Ten have 
finished and most useful to 100 milers though even they still require "down time" to 
effectively process hay, grain, etc.

Here is a good article on the basics of a horse's digestive tract:
http://ohioline.osu.edu/b762/b762_5.html


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