response to Sarah

["John & Sue Greenall" <greenall@vermontel.net>]

Hi Sarah, great to have you back.  At the rides in question I was 
able to observe one of the 'quitters" during the holds.  He was given 
all the oats he could eat, but was, as most endurance horses , not 
gobbling them down.  However, the longer hold did allow for more 
grain to get into the horses, however, "more" is not pounds, more 
like mouthfuls.  My horse did manage to eat all of his slurpy (beet 
pulp, carrots, apples, handful of sweet feed) and went on to hay.  
He ate for the entire hold, each hold.  So did the other horses.  The 
point being that very often we offer more food to our horses than 
they can eat at a hold (long discussion some time back about all 
the wasted feed found at holds) but in the case of a longer hold, 
perhaps they actually ate all of what we consider a "normal" feed, 
which was perhaps twice what they were used to.  The horses that 
"quit" were ravenous at the later holds and were even given the 
opportunity to eat out on the trail by the crews.  My horse, who did 
not quit, would stop by the trucks and browse, but was more 
interested in continuing.  Those horses were not.  Didn't even pick 
their heads up when we left them.  Chew on that, Sarah, for you 
are the greatest observer of what goes into a horse at a ride that I 
know!  (Fling is never wanting, for sure!)
John and Sue Greenall
mailto:greenall@vermontel.net
http://www.vermontel.com/~greenall


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