Nutrition and equine performance.

The research article discusses the role of proper nutrition in enhancing the performance of horses in exercise and racing. It explores aspects such as energy, protein, and Vitamin E needs of horses and how these can affect performance and prevent diseases.

Energy Requirements

• The paper begins by discussing the energy needs of performance horses. It notes that aspects like the amount, source, and timing of energy intake can affect a horse’s performance during exercise.
• The authors reference the 1989 increase in energy requirements estimated by the National Research Council (NRC) for racing horses, suggesting the changes were reasonable based on recent studies. Nonetheless, they note that many factors can influence these energy requirements.
• As such, the authors suggest the best measure for determining a horse’s energy needs would be its body weight and composition, illustrating the importance of a balance of soluble carbohydrate, fiber, fat, and protein.

Pre-Exercise Energy Ingestion

• The paper also delves into the effects of the type and amount of energy source given before exercise. The authors point out that this could affect the levels of plasma glucose and free fatty acids during exercise.
• However, it remains unclear what the effects of these changes in the concentration of metabolites are. Further research is required to assess this.

Proteins and Supplements

• Moving on to protein requirements, the authors argue that increased dietary concentrations of protein are not necessary and can even impair a horse’s performance.
• In terms of supplements, the research indicates that adding histidine (to boost carnosine levels) or carnitine seems to provide limited value for horses on conventional diets.

Vitamin E

• As for vitamin E, the authors state that dietary concentrations less than the NRC’s recommended 80 IU/kg seem to protect adequately against exercise-induced peroxidation. This means that horses do not necessarily need high concentrations of Vitamin E to prevent damage to their cells during exercise.
• The research suggests that the NRC’s value might be more appropriate to enhance the horse’s immune response. However, more studies need to be done to validate this.
• Vitamin E is highlighted as having been shown to be connected with familial equine degenerative myeloencephalopathy (a condition that deteriorates the horse’s nervous system) and may be linked with equine motor neuron disease, which is considered similar to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in humans.