Re: Carbs -Water/comparison

[Tivers@aol.com]

In a message dated 98-06-25 06:31:41 EDT, rides2far@juno.com writes:

<< I just recalled a study I read about a few years back.  They had taken a
 dozen ponies and fed 1/2 the group a high grain diet, and 1/2 the group a
 mostly hay diet...the results?  The group that ate more hay carried FAR
 MORE WATER!!  
 
 Now, in the endurance horse this is GOOD, in the race horse this is BAD.>

Hmm, I don't know about that. Certainly hydration can be a major problem in
endurance, but carrying around an extra 100 lbs can be too. Also note that I
haven't said that carbs should be 100% of the diet--instead, something closer
to 50%. 
 
 >I remember when we would send horses to be trained for the track and my
 dad would come in and say, "He's starting to tuck".  Ooooh that was
 exciting. (Contrast that with Courtney Hart's recommendation that a good
 endurance horse should be larger in the flank than the girth.)>

But tucking is just a muscle tightening up with speed work--same as would
happen with me if I started doing 100 situps a day. 
 
 > I loved going to the track and seeing the horses all tucked up like
 grayhounds.  Of course, the tuck was achieved by putting horses on fairly
 high grained diets, then just giving them a little flake of alfalfa for
 their roughage; then of course the exercise. > 

The tuck was achieved by speed work. The greyhound look via inadequate
nutritional support for the workload.

>  The fact is, water in the
 gut is just dead weight to a racehorse.  That's why they take away their
 hay on raceday and their water an hour or so before the race.> 

Today they take the water away because they're all on Lasix. A diuretic. It's
one of the stupider things about horseracing. 
 
 >Contrast that with the endurance horse that we want hydrated up like a
 camel.  Endurance horses are in far greater danger of running out of
 water than they are of running out of energy.  Don't know where that puts
 the "Fats burn on the flame of Carbos"  Does the water snuff the flame
 out for you?  :-)>

I'm not against water, but there is a partitioning problem. Where the body
wants water is in the circulatory system, not in the gut. And to the extent
that you have a whole lot of roughage in the gut when it comes time to move
the water into circulation, you can encounter problems one place or the other.
Not enough water to move the roughage, or not enough water to support the
exercise. 
 
 >Some things just aren't of equal importance in the two sports.  To a
 racehorse, big bone is big weight, that's why they've bred it out of
 them.>

Big bone is soft bone.

>  Big feet means big weight on the end of a pole (bigger weight) so
 they bred it out.>

We (my trainers) always go for increased hoof mass. 

>  Big gut means too much water, so you emptied it.>

Nope. Big gut means unfit horse and lax muscles.
 
 >Perhaps that is why Heidi has her hindgut fixation.  People who go on
 long trips should always carry water!>

No problem there--but on the athlete? 
 
 <Angie> 

ti
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