Re: Horse too fast!!

[Tivers@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/17/99 8:00:02 PM Pacific Standard Time,
suendavid@worldnet.att.net writes:

<< Oh, Tom.  What nonsense.  Read some of the actual work being done.  Or are
 you claiming a vast, sinister conspiracy bent on brainwashing the
 horse-owning public for it's own evil ends? >

Nope. Simple ignorance.


 >
 >In other words, you chose to ignore it
 >
 
 No.  I chose to read the entire paragraph and take it *all* into context.
 
 >However, since you're stuck on that one sentence, nobody's disagreeing that
 fats are unnecessary if carbohydrates and protein meet the energy needs.
 So, let's apply that to Real Life Endurance.  Based on Pagan's energy
 expenditure formula, an average endurance horse finishing middle of the pack
 on a fifty mile ride twice a month (which is done all the time) will burn an
 additional 40 Mcals of net energy at the cellular level, which after you
 allow for the usual losses of metabolism, means you need to supply roughly
 60 Mcals of dietary energy just to repay the losses during those rides.
 That's in addition to maintenance requirements of what we assume is a horse
 at, say, moderate work, assuming the horse gets a little exercise of some
 sort between rides.  So this guy's total monthly gross energy requirements
 are going to be roughly 750 Mcals of energy, or 25 Mcals a day.  Assuming
 the 950 pound horse is eating 2% of his BW per day in grass hay, that's 15
 Mcals taken care of, leaving a deficit of  10 Mcals.  To supply that with
 carbos, I need to feed about six pounds of straight corn, or seven pounds of
 COB, each and every day.  If he doesn't eat it on travel days, or because
 his guts aren't good during the ride, then he has to make up that deficit
 other days, and we won't even worry about extra calories burned up because
 he's hyper or because you're top tenning or because you weight 250 pounds
 without tack.>

You can cite all such studies as you want--but I'm telling you that you will
get a very obvious boost in performance, throughout a ride, by supplementaing
2 oz of a glycogen loading product every two hours. Until you do so, you
remain ignorant on this particular subject. It's a very simple
experiment--many here have already done it. I passed the stuff out to see what
would happen--and made no definitive statements until the reports started
coming in. Surely there is one elite academic in this group who also possesses
a pinch of courage and an ounce of curiosity.  
 
> Seven pounds of grain isn't a big deal for a TB, for for a little, tiny
 Arab, that's alot of grain and there are SCADS of horses that turn into
 idiots on more than a couple pounds of grain.>

Did you hear me say anyuthing about 7 pounds of grain? Or are you
extrapolating into your netherworld again. You have a very short attention
span.

>  Others WILL run into
 metabolic problems (not all of them, but some---I have one of them),
 especially if they don't get exercised every single day and don't have turn
 out. > 

Well, you have some experience in one area. Tying up the problem? Sounds like
you haven't solved it.


>  Just because race track people blithely feed 14 pounds of grain a day
 to TBs and get away with it doesn't mean it's the optimal diet for endurance
 horses when better solutions are available.>

Try up to 25 lbs of sweet feed. Plus an equal amount of grass hay--won the
Japan Cup with that one.
 
> Or, boy howdy, you can feed just half of that grain, throw in a cup or so of
 oil, supply surplus calories so you can maintain body condition and not
 worry about all the REAL problems that do exist with grain overload. 

Again, I'm not talking about grain in these discussions.

> It's
 not an excess of fat, it still supplies plenty of all the other nutrients,
 and like it or not, it's proven in the EQUINE exercise literature as a valid
 feeding protocol.> 

Then you can quickly prove me wrong in the field--you should be slavering to
do it. Eh? 
 
> Read my lips, Tom---ENDURANCE HORSES ARE NOT THOROUGHBREDS.  Better yet,
 read ALL the literature, not just the ones that support your own agenda.>

I peruse 3700 papers a month and read, completely, about 300 of them. Not
counting journals. My job is to deliver technology to my clients. The fact
that you don't recognize science derived from other species suggests to me
that your reading is very limited. 
 
 
 >
 >I can't disagree with that, either, especially  the "may be" part. However,
 >the first sentence was the lead of the paragraph--the topic sentence. Lewis
 is
 >saying that you have a choice to feed fat, and that it's a high energy
 content
 >nutrient, but if you feed adequate carbohydrate, it's not necessary.
 
 >High energy content, yes.  Highest energy content, no.  And it doesn't come
 without some baggage at the energy requirements endurance horses have.
 Nobody said feeding fats is a federal requirement, Tom.  The only one that
 gets all worked up in a fret in the publications (TrailBlazer for you, the
 scientific journals for the rest of us evil Poobahs) is you.>

I don't consider you a Poobah--just a follower--perhaps a Poobah in training.
But tunnel vision is tunnel vision. And fear is fear--you're afraid I'm right,
so you can't bring yourself to actually try it once and see what happens.  
 
 
 >Most have to do with how muscles process fuels. For example, a diet rich in
 >carbohydrate nearly eliminates the use of fat as a muscular fuel--no matter
 >how much fat you feed. The athletic body perfers carbohydrate.
 
 In other words, more human studies.>

And rats. Chickens. Mice. Dogs. And horses. You're not even reading the equine
literature on this one. So you're saying that the ingestion of high levels of
carbohydrate and subsequent rise in blood glucose will not shut down fat
metabolism in the horse???   
 
 
 >I don't get a free ride to ICEEPs--so I attend the ones I can afford to
 >attend--3 of them thus far. Very pleased, though, that my tax dollars are
 >sending you to places where you'll expand your knowledge, somewhat.
 
 >Actually, the funding for me to present my research at ICEEP was provided
 entirely by the Japan Racing Association.  It covered my airfare, I paid for
 the rest myself.  As I have to every other research meeting I've gone to,
 the majority of the expenses for me to put together slides and handouts when
 I travel to talk to different endurance groups, also the $10,000 or so I
 paid by myself to conduct the research in the first place.  Not one thin
 dime came from tax dollars.  Not one. >

Your courage quotient went up 20 points. So why don't you fund yourself a
quick and dirty experiment to prove me wrong once and for all? It'll cost you
$0 for the materials. Save up some of your altruism for more important
sacrifices. 


>If anyone wants to know why someone
 who does endurance horse research only gets to a ride once a year as an
 entrant, it's because the entry money went instead for research expenses and
 airfare to learn the data from the source.  Starting next year, it'll be
 going to pay for four years of vet school, and not one dime of THAT will be
 coming from tax dollars, either.  And THAT, Tom, is called putting your
 money where your mouth is.>

Good for you. Now put your mind where your mouth is. 

ti