Argamak Stud

You can now test your racehorses for speed through Equinome. They have developed a genetic test for Thoroughbreds for the C:C (short), C:T (middle) and T:T (long) genes. C:C -likely to be a fast, early maturing horse that performs well as a two-year-old. Average best distance – 6.5 f (1300 m) C:T -mixture of speed [...]

Endurance people take note! Your horses are affected by transportation. They are amazing creatures, but they do need time to recover fully following transportation. They also have increased susceptibility to disease in the 24 hours following transportation. Also, they are less stressed and less likely to get sick if their heads are not tied during [...]

The dietary cation-anion difference (DCAD) of a feed can be used to characterize large animal diets. DCAD (also known as DCAB or dietary cation-anion balance) of the diet is a major determinant of blood SID as the strong ions enter the blood from the digestive tract (Riond 2000). DCAD is the difference between the strong [...]

Neilsen and Spooner of Michigan State did a post hoc study of research looking at changes in bone as a result of either nutrition or exercise. The interest in decreasing skeletal injury in horses is of course of great practical importance to horse owners and trainers. They found that it is exercise that causes improvements [...]

Here is an abstract of research from Northern Arizona University finding that stallions were faster than both mares and geldings. Looking at the results for Thoroughbred, the stallions were lengths ahead of the mares at the 1600m (or less) races and there was twice as much difference between them at races over 1600m. Do racehorses [...]

There is a paucity of scientific data on massage therapy (Lovas et al. 2002). The few studies performed using objective measurements have methodological flaws. Scientific evidence currently does not support nor refute claims made by massage advocates. Although many studies find that massage may be beneficial, researchers also discuss the lack of objective measures and [...]

The type of feed the horse eats is what determines what fuel is available for the horse to use during exercise. So it is important to figure out the optimal diet for your horses. Although there has been research showing the benefits of fat supplementation over feeding grain in equine diets, many people still prefer [...]

A Quantitative Analysis of the Effects of Feeding and Daily Variation on Plasma Acid-Base Status in Resting Horses A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Graduate Studies of The University of Guelph by KERRI JO SMITHURST, 2003 Conclusions: Daily variation in the measured blood constituents identified in this study was due to either feeding or [...]

LITERATURE REVIEW by Kerri-Jo Smithurst, University of Guelph A Summary of the Effects of Feeding and Daily Variation on Acid-Base Status in Resting Horses Plasma acid-base state affects, and may also be a reflection of, the health of equine athletes. The physicochemical model, as developed by Stewart (1981), defines the blood constituents that effect or [...]

Kerri-Jo Smithurst, Department of Human Biology, University of Guelph, September 2002 Abstract: Track racing relies heavily on the horse’s anaerobic metabolism to produce the speeds necessary to win. One widely accepted theory is that a major limiting factor to high intensity exercise is the production of lactic acid in the muscles. This paper examines the [...]