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RE: [RC] [RC] RC RC:Thanks Leonard - Shannon Chastain

Heidi,

I do two rides a year in the late fall that have almost nothing on the trail to 
eat. Can
they get "enough" at the vet checks. I do carry some hay cubes and carrots and 
feed them
at the water stops. I also make Electrolytes cookies I make them with oats, corn
molasses, carrot, Ultium and and a small amount of electrolytes a little more 
for
hot/humid rides and less on cooler rides). I feed these on the trail pre-ride, 
vet
checks, on the trail and post ride but only when he is drinking good. At one of 
the
CTR's I did some newbies actually ate a few and said they taste good kinda like 
a salty
granola bar.
Shannon
Missouri


On Tue, 09 Jan 2007 19:56:55 -0700, heidi wrote

Nik, here are a few points to ponder.

1) A 500 kg horse "contains" about 20 kg ofelectrolytes. Of that, about 40% 
is 
calcium, so he contains about12 kg of of other e-lytes.

2) While the losses in sweat seem like a lot, do the mathsometime on the 
amount of sodium, potassium, and chloride inforages. It is relatively high,
 and horses that eat the amountsthat our endurance horses ingest far more e-
lytes in oneday's worth of hay than the calculated losses on a 100-mileride.

3) The "soup" in the horse's hindgut consists of what he ate2 days ago--in 
other words, his gut contains at least two days' worthof feed. See point #2. 
The hindgut of the properly fedhorse is a huge electrolyte reserve, as well 
as 
a fluidreserve.

4) As for fluid, an average horse in temperate weatherconsumes about 5-10 
gallons per day. )That's a shade less than20-40 liters for those of you in 
countries more progressive thanthe US of A who use the metric system.) A 
la


ctatingbroodmare on a hot day will drink upwards of 100 gallons perday. (For 

the aforementioned, that's a bit less than 400liters.) Although a horse's 
stomach only holds about 2gallons (8 liters, for the aforementioned), water 
is 
absorbed sorapidly that IF the horse does not have his cellularmechanisms for 
transporting water across the lining of the stomachimpaired (say, by too many 
electrolytes), he can often drink up to fivegallons (20 liters, for the 
English-unit-challenged from moreprogressive countries) in one go. At any 
rate,
 replacing fluidlosses on the order that Nik mentions (7.5-10 gallons, for 
those of youin the US of A who are metric-challenged) is not a difficult 
thing 
forthe horse to do in the course of the ride.

Bottom line--the key here is keeping the horse EATING. If heeats well, he 
will 
generally drink well, which in turn willsufficiently hydrate the food that he 
ingests so that he canbenefit. But really, he is drawing from that great huge 
vat inhis hindgut, if you have fed him adequately going into the ride--
everyvolume of "hindgut soup" that he dehydrates into a ball of manure 
giveshim both e-lytes and fluids. What he has to do is to keep eatingto keep 
that all moving, so it doesn't just sit there.

Now let's look at the flip side. Let's pour a bunch ofe-lytes into his 
stomach. Critters are tough, and his gut willtry like hell to assimilate the 
stuff, but he will have to draw fluidout of the bloodstream (and in turn out 
of cells) and into the stomachin order to process that big wad of caustic 
stuff. And if youmess with this mechanism enough, you end up with horses that 
actuallyreverse the direction of the flow of fluid so that it tends to go 
INTOthe gut from the body instead of into the body from the gut. 
Thiscondition 
in the upper small intestine is called anterior enteritis, andit is on the 
rise in endurance horses in this country. Leftunrefluxed, this fluid can 
actually result in rupture of thestomach. (Been a few cases of that in recent 
years.) Thisis also called "third-spacing" of fluid.

The subject of ulcers has been discussed here, and there is also aconnection 
there to e-lytes. Oh, great--you need this horse toeat, so you stick stuff in 
his stomach that makes it hurt so that hedoesn't want to eat.

I'll add that there are some specific situations where e-lytesupplementation 
is necessary and advisable--but on review of theamounts of fluids and e-lytes 
involved in consumption and loss(never mind the flip side of what can happen 
when you give too much),I can't think of ANY excuse for giving the big 
walloping dosesthat are currently in vogue in this sport in the US of A.

Kudos to the French for doing their homework--Leonard is right, youget good 
performance by first breeding good horses, then raising themright, and then 
conditioning them right, feeding them right, andputting good riders on them. 
E-
lytes are not a shortcut to theend of that formula.

Heidi

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: RE: [RC]RC RC:Thanks Leonard
From: "Nik Isahak Abdullah"<drnikisahak@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, January 09, 2007 10:47am
To: heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Leonard.Liesens@xxxxxxxxxx,ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hi Heidi ,
 It is interesting that we are divided on as 'simple 'an issue asEL 
on a ride .Make one wonder where the absolute truth is .But letus reexamine 
the facts in an average 160 km ride :
1.Water loss....average 30 to 40 litres,may be more depending on the heat 
ofthe day,but not really much more if the humidity is high as well which
put a cap on the sweating mechanism { which also put a cap on thehorse 
ability to go at speed on a hot and humid day ,which isanother story and 
issue }
2.An average loss of around 300 to 400grams of salt ,sodium chloride {0.3 
to 0.4 kg!} ,45 to 50 grams ofpotassium loss and a smaller amount of 
magnesium etc etc .
3.Themax one can ever get to replacing sodium chloride loss in those
commercially produced EL gel packs{ 50 ml syringe} is probably lessthan 
2000 mg or 2 gram if I recall correctly .Even if we were tocorrect only a 
quarter of the deficit ,we would need 40 shots ofthose big ampoules!!!!40 
ampoules in a horse with varyingdegree of dehydration may probably do more 
harm than good .Majorityusually dispense with 4 ampoules and if you are 
Leonard Liesens,outside the confine of his CDQ in a foreign land we are 
probablylooking at 2 or as he put it ,only one ampoule at the start as a
bad recurring habit .
4.And finally we have the French and theBelgium teams doing so very well at 
top level FEI competitions witha no EL' policy .Never mind the French ,one 
can feel at any one ridethat it is close to a 'national' religion . The 
Belgium ,if I get myfacts right has only less than 400 registered riders 
and horses andthere are doing so well !I am sure EL is just a minor part of 
theirstory but they must be in total in the right flight path.

 Now what would I do on a ride on a hot humid day inKuala Lumpur ? The 
next time I feel compelled to syringe down awhole load of nasty ,sharp on 
the gastric mucosae EL down myhorse's throat I would think of the French 
and Leonard .May be gomore slow on the EL .Concentrate on preempting the 
more dreadeddehydration issue perhaps .

Nik


From:heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
To:Leonard.Liesens@xxxxxxxxxxxx
CC: drnikisahak@xxxxxxxxxxx,ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: [RC] RC RC:ThanksLeonard
Date: Tue, 09 Jan 2007 08:50:05-0700

Obviously I have no experience in Malaysia,either, but to add to
what Leonard has saidhere...

One of our winningest riders here who normallyuses zero
electrolytes has a "hot and humid" formula that worksfor her--and like
Leonard's suggestion, it is not high in rawelectrolytes. She does
a mixture of about 25% e-lytes and75% yogurt, and then gives something
like 2-3 ounces of thatmixture ONCE at the beginning of the ride, and
then nomore.

One of the very serious repercussions with overuseof electrolytes
is that critters (not just horses, but humans,etc.) will "third-space"
fluids--in other words, begin to pullfluid back into the gut to bring
the concentration of thee-lytes there back to normal when they can't
transport thee-lytes across the gut wall fast enough or whenthe
concentration is already high in the fluids in thebloodstream and the
cells due to dehydration. This evenmore rapidly dehydrates the
critter. I keep thinking aboutBev Gray's horse in Dubai having
seizures on the overlyaggressive e-lyte doses that were more or less
forced on thehorses by the leadership of the squad thatyear...

Heidi





WithEl, I just don't know what would be the best in
Malaysia. Justguessing and giving an answer would be ridiculous. You
guysthere should try to launch some tests.

Example :weighting
horses before and after events (80 or120K)
trying a few without EL
and the others with El (butplease calculate the total amount
administered otherwise simplysaying that you give EL make no sense if
the horse receives justlets say 3 doses of P&W for the whole
race).
tryingisotonic EL (in the drinking water)
callculating
thequantity drank by the horse (not that difficult, countingthe
number of movments of the (sorry forgot the english name),but you
understand what I mean.

I can just tellthat our horse at the
Terengganu rides didn't receive very muchof EL, not the huge amounts
that I sometimes see administered inthe US. They got the Foran Refuel
that I think (I have to check)is very low in terms ofraw
EL.



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RE: [RC] [RC] RC RC:Thanks Leonard, heidi