Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

Lori Bertolucci <loribertolucci@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:52:14 -0800 (PST)
From: Lori Bertolucci <loribertolucci@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: [RC] alternative to Platinum Performance
To: suendavid@xxxxxxx, ridecamp <ridecamp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Thanks Susan, I will do just that.

I can't say for positive that the bp isn't part of the problem, as it could just be a matter of time before it showed up, and I started the Platinum before that time...who knows...

I do know that if I give Gambler the P. twice daily, as suggested, I can't hardly get near him in his corral. You'd think I had sprouted horns and was coming to get him!  He really gets goofy, and not in a nice Walt Disney sort of way.

last year at Fire Mnt, you said he was too well mannered to be an endurance horse...well you didn't get to see him out on the trail!  lol

I will monitor his behavior now that I have stopped the P. and see if things settle down. He has been off of them for a few days now, and today he was his sweet, follow me around, self.

Next weekend we will do another training ride, and that will let me know how he really is doing.

 

Thanks everyone for all the help!

 

Lori

"Susan E. Garlinghouse, DVM" <suendavid@xxxxxxx> wrote:

One thing I learned a long time ago was, never say ?never? in regards to horses or God forbid, horse nutrition, because as soon as you do, it?s guaranteed that the very next day, a horse will win the world championship endurance square dance and pie-eating contest on nothing other than beer and taco chips.   The best we can hope for is to read the literature in the peer-reviewed journals, make some guesses, cast the bones of a black rooster at midnight during a full moon and hope the horse in question doesn?t realize you?re talking about him (lest he do the opposite just to make you look silly).

 

Having said all that, some horses seem to do just fine with beet pulp---others turn into whack jobs.  Apparently the same is true for Platinum Performance, at least in your case.  If you?ve kept everything the same, and the horse only gets his brains back if you remove the PP---then I guess it was something in the PP that did the trick.  Go figure.

 

There is a pretty wide variety in the residual simple carbs in beet pulp, added molasses or not.  The average tends to stay reasonably low, but I?ve seen samples that are sky-high as well.  One of my horses doesn?t do well with soluble carbs in her ration, so for her, I remove as much as possible.  For the gelding that stays steady as a steam engine no matter what you feed him, I don?t bother or even pay much attention.  And I have yet another that gets dumb if he gets a lot of flax seed.  Flax seed usually doesn?t make horses stupid, but it does for him, so I guess he didn?t read the same studies I did, or is just trying to be difficult.  Platinum Performance has a lot of flax seed in it, so maybe that?s what your boy is also reacting to.  High alfalfa can also make some horses goofy IME.

 

So my suggestion is to do what it sounds like you?re already doing---don?t change anything in your routine except for the supplement.  If he loses/regains his brains based on that, then there?s your answer.  If he?s still a knucklehead, then try omitting one of the other commodities in the ration and see what that does.  If you?re thinking carbs in the beet pulp is a potential problem, then soak it in huge amounts of water, drain it off, rinse it again and see if he does better with that after most of the soluble carbs have been removed.

 

Hope this helps.

Susan Garlinghouse, DVM