Re: Body fat and endurance

["Maryanne Stroud Gabbani" <gabbani@starnet.com.eg>]

> > ... Until recently very few people fed
> > significant amount of grain or high simple carbo to horses on the rides.
>
> Are you sure? Beginning this century, a Frenchman, Bausil (endurance rider
> Paris-Rouen) fed high amounts of sugar on rides and wrote a book about
training
> and feeding. At his time, his influence was remarkable. He put tons of
suggar
> (saccharose) into water, and feeds molasses as well - in huge amounts, and
I
> think, malt. His believers were not so successfull as their master. I
think this
> insulin-thing made it not so effective, or long-lasting. But the excessive
> Fat-feeder, in this century, were in no way more successfull.
> Anyway, do we talking about the same substances here? I thought we're
talking
> about oz., not pounds. Or will that Chromium-thing make the difference ?
Did I
> missed something ?


Is this a local myth or were Arab horses traditionally largely fed on dates,
which do contain pretty high levels of sugars? Egypt is fortunate to have
decent agricultural land, but with the heat we only get a decent forage in a
green state in the winter. Summer forage is usually sorghum, a pretty nasty
substitute. Saudi Arabia doesn't even have that and certainly doesn't have
grassland for grazing. I've heard (although never found written reference)
that the horses were given dates and ground date pits. They're pretty high
in minerals and sugar and the pits have a respectable level of protein and
oil, so maybe that would work? They are very high in potassium as well.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
gabbani@starnet.com.eg


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