Re: Rattlesnake Ridge ride - heat and humidity! (kind of long)

[Truman Prevatt <truman.prevatt@netsrq.com>]

>The folks in the East have learned this lesson well and they sponge or
>spray their horses constantly, almost at every road crossing.  They have
>learned that in high humity, "conductive cooling" is much more effective
>than "evaporative cooling."
>

Also many horses in the east have acclimiated to this by learing to pant to
blow off heat.  Some studies have indicated that a horse can blow off a
large amouht of heat by panting.  

In dry climates evaporative is in fact more efficient.  It is when the
humidity gets hight that it becomes an issue.  The air can only hold so
much mosture and when it is saturated sweat will just run off and not
evaporiate and hence not produce any cooling.

>I have also seen crews in the East apply ice water the horses under
>stress, then let it sit for a few seconds and then scrape it off-- then
>they do it again and again.  I'm not sure how they keep from causing
>muscle cramps, but maybe someone from the East will jump in and explain
>the process.
>

This was studied by a Univ of GA team prior to the 96 games in Atlanta.
The conclusions is that there are no ill effects of dumping large amounts
of ice water on a hot horse and this is exactly what they did in Atlanta.

Truman