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I think it really depends. I always have free choice salt available. In 
the dog days on the Gulf coast when they sit in the pasture under a 
shade tree and sweat 24 hours a day - I throw a little lite salt into 
the feed. However, I don't electrolyte during a training ride - even in 
the dog days. I might electrolyte a little afterwards to keep the horse 
from diluting his plasma by drinking a lot of water when we get home but 
I will normally wait till the evening feeding and through some lite salt 
in.

The one thing I have to wonder is about the mixes. In the old days we 
used the home brew mixes - salt, lite salt, dolomite or maybe tums. It 
was salty - sure but that's all salty. It was salty - sure but some of 
the mixes today use other salts some organic salts and actually and seem 
quite caustic and even "burn" your mouth when you taste them.

So after my gallon of liquid Lyte Now is used up I'm thinking seriously 
about going back to the old home brews. I've never given much at one 
time but do give them more often and determine the amount by the day. 
I've never had any trouble. I did participate in a study one time where 
it showed that I was probably not giving enough - my horse's 
electrolytes were a little below the mean after a 100 mile ride. So I 
upped them a little by given them more often and I think she seemed to 
do better after that - had more spunk at the end.

Truman

rides2far@xxxxxxxx wrote:
> My understanding was that this would be the worst thing you could do. 
> >From what I've read the thing to do was not give them at home since 
> you wanted the horse's body to be good at utilizing them frugally, 
> then in competition give a little extra to a horse whose body had 
> been trained to make the most of what it got. I never give them at 
> home, do give them in comptition. The only REAL noticable change I 
> ever had with or without was that I used the wrong kind of 
> electrolytes at one ride (the kind meant for a foal with scours or 
> whatever) and my horse got thumps. Other than that, any improvement 
> or lack of improvement was hard enough to quantify with all the other 
> variables that it was one of those "I *think* he does better" 
> situations. 
>
> I have cut back on electrolytes since I'm not racing up front right 
> now and I finally got a good source of alfalfa which they really go 
> for at the checks.  I'll be playing it by ear and reading what's 
> written to decide what to do as we speed up.
>
> Angie
>
>
>
>
>   


--

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a 
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also 
into you.” Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil


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