Imagine you’ve just crossed the finish line on cross country. You’re breathing a little hard, your heart is still pounding with adrenaline, and beads of sweat are soaking into your shirt. You look down and see your horse is experiencing the same. You both have just given so much getting around that course and now it’s time to replace all that energy and hydration.

With Australia’s harsh climate, maintaining your horse’s hydration and electrolyte levels is incredibly important regardless of whether they’re competing at a three-day event or standing in a paddock during the summer heat. From a competition perspective, restoring electrolytes effectively can make all the difference in placings and the lasting health of the horse. This is a factor that Hygain-sponsored eventer Hannah Klep is all too aware of when it comes to competing her three horses around Australia.

BLOOD, SWEAT AND TEARS

“In Australia, we have a really hot climate,” says Hannah. “And we exercise our horses through that. Our horses are just naturally generating more sweat than they probably should while we’re exercising them. So, then we’ve got to supplement that and replace what we’ve taken out during the work.”

In her eventing arsenal, Hannah has two horses competing respectively at four-star and three-star, and a five-year-old that she hopes to have competing at one-star by this time next year. With three active performance horses, Hannah spends a lot of time training at home and out at competitions when they aren’t cancelled by Covid. Throughout all the work, Hannah ensures she is putting back into her horses what she is taking out with feeds and supplements that help boost depleted electrolyte levels.

“At home, they get Hygain Regain,” explains Hannah. “They don’t get that every day. I put that in their feed if they’ve had a big workout, or we’re leading into a big event where I want them to be really hydrated, or if we’re getting hot days above 25 degrees, they’ll get it in their feed. Regain was formulated to mimic sweat so you’re only putting in what the horse is losing when it’s sweating like on hot days, or when you’re riding. I really like Regain because there are no fillers or random vitamins, which keeps the dosage lower and more effective. And if you’ve got a fussy eater, they’re more likely to eat it. It’s just a tiny amount that you put in their feed.”

“It’s so important to keep them drinking and keep them hydrated. At the moment, they’re on a spell, but they’re still getting Regain because it’s 33 degrees out there today. You’ll lift up their flysheets and they’ll be sweating under them. They’ll just naturally sweat in this sort of heat anyway, so you’ve got to replace it.”

I use a different electrolyte when I’m at comps, I use Recuperate. It’s a more unique, high-concentrated blend and it’s got vitamin B group, natural vitamin E, and then also all the critical electrolytes. This is in a liquid form, so I take it to comps, and especially three-day events, because it provides a more rapid recovery time. It’s got so many benefits. It also improves muscle metabolism, enhances energy production and stimulates appetite; you need all of those things at a three-day event after they’ve just galloped and jumped for 10 minutes. You want to get the recovery happening as quickly as you can because they’ve got to show jump the next day. So they’ll come off cross country and have a dose of Recuperate and then maybe another dose the next morning just depending on how they are and how hot it is. Obviously, they are going to have more of it at Adelaide when it’s summer than at Melbourne when you’re in the middle of winter, but they’ll still get it at any event because you still want them to drink and stay hydrated.”

WHY ELECTROLYTES ARE SO IMPORTANT

Just supplying water isn’t enough to restore the horse’s body in such a short period of time as needed at a competition. That’s why keeping a good quality electrolyte supplement on hand is vital. The positive and negative charges of horse electrolytes help to control the body’s pH (acid/base) balance and the transport of nutrients and waste products in and out of the cell. The minerals sodium, potassium, chloride, calcium, and magnesium collectively are termed electrolytes. When dissolved in body water, those minerals are electrically charged particles called ions. Sodium and chloride are the primary electrolytes contained in blood plasma and extracellular fluid, while potassium is the chief intracellular electrolyte.

These electrolytes are critical for a large number of body functions. For example, horse electrolytes modulate fluid exchange between the body’s fluid compartments and regulate acid-base balance. Sodium and potassium are important for the establishment of proper electrical gradients across cell membranes. Calcium and magnesium also are important in this regard. These electrical gradients are vital for normal nerve and muscle function – electrolyte deficiencies or imbalances therefore can impair nerve and muscle function.

The kidneys are of prime importance in maintaining electrolyte balance. Some electrolytes are lost in manure, but most of the fine-tuning is done by the kidneys. In general, sodium is highly conserved – very little is excreted in the urine. On the other hand, the kidneys excrete substantial quantities of potassium and calcium on a daily basis. This is partly due to the fact that dietary intake of potassium and calcium tends to be high. Remembering that horses are around 60% water, and that works out to be around 270kg of water from an average 450kg horse. This is why electrolytes are so important in the horse, particularly when you’re asking a horse to perform highly strenuous activities such as eventing.

ONE TO WATCH FOR THE FUTURE

At only 22, Hannah Klep has achieved an incredible amount in her short time in the eventing world. “My family has no history with horses,” explains Hannah. “I was obsessed with horses. When I was eight years old, my parents gifted me five riding lessons at a riding school. Then shortly after they purchased a property, and I got my first pony. So, I just started at Pony Club; we had good friends there who were into eventing, so they introduced me to it. I just had really supportive parents who were willing to learn everything about the animal and they put me through years of riding lessons, for which I’m very grateful. But I just always loved the animal ever since I knew what it was.

“I made the Australian team in 2019 for the Oceania competition over in New Zealand. That was on my horse Reprieve, a thoroughbred that I brought up through the levels and he was off the track. He went to the police for six months, but I had to start him at Introductory and we worked our way up to three-star level. I finished school and spent 18 months with Shane Rose, and I did Adelaide with him. I won Wallaby Hill Young Rider three-star long two years in a row in 2019 and 2020. Now I’m a part of the National Youth recognition squad and the New South Wales High Performance squad. I also got to do the Ingrid Klimke Masterclass when she came down to Melbourne, which was so cool.”

One of Hannah’s latest achievements this year was making the big jump from three-star to four-star competition with Reprieve. “It was a long time coming. I had planned to go four-star back in early 2020, but then Covid hit so it got delayed a whole year. And so it was sort of this big build-up of getting there and then once I was there, it was like, ‘Wow, am I really doing this?’ I’m still quite young, and everyone else at four-star level is so much older and more experienced than me. You look around in the warm-up and it’s Shane Rose, Stuart Tinney, Heath Ryan and you’re just like, ‘what am I doing?’ It was all very intimidating in that way, but then they’re also helpful and supportive. Everyone just wants to help.

“Reprieve is not a careful showjumper but he’s a gun on cross country. It was just the best feeling cantering around the four-star cross country. Then I’ve got a three-star horse called Tulara Chicouve, and he’s a full warmblood so very different to my four-star horse who’s an off-the-track thoroughbred. And then I have a five-year-old big paint warmblood x thoroughbred. He’s going to be a superstar. I’ve only had him around eight months and he’s only done one event. He won on a dressage score of 80 per cent, with a clear on cross country and in the jumping. I’m quite excited about him.

“I would like to get Tulara Chicouve to Adelaide at the end of 2022 in the three-star, and then I’d like to have a crack at the Melbourne four-star long on Reprieve in June. So hopefully the rain doesn’t ruin my plans to qualify. Those two big competitions are the aim at the moment. And then in a perfect world I’d like to get my five-year-old to the one-star long format at Wallaby Hill, which is at the end of the year in December. I’m not stressed about it, but for all those three things to happen, everything’s got to fall into place. I think that’s the hard thing with eventing – you can’t get your hopes up because horses go lame and sometimes you don’t qualify.”

One of the keys to helping things fall into place is having a solid foundation with a horse’s diet and supplements. Being sponsored by Hygain, Hannah has everything at her fingertips to help her horses perform their best. “Hygain’s new supplement range is so advanced,” says Hannah. “If you compare their electrolytes to the other electrolytes on the market, their science and technology behind the supplements now that they’ve all been outdated is just well in front of the other brands. They’ve put so much study behind it. Even with the feeds, there are so many vitamins and salts in them that you don’t always need to give supplements and electrolytes all the time, which is why I don’t give mine Regain every day, so they don’t get an overdose of electrolytes. People just need to read the feed label, read the dosage instructions, because you don’t want to give them too many electrolytes if they’re already getting everything they need in the Hygain feed range. Hygain’s feed is so advanced. The word ‘supplement’ is exactly what it is; you don’t necessarily need it unless you’re taking the sweat and all that out of them. But living in Australia, it’s important to always be aware of it.” EQ

This article was written in conjunction with Hygain. You can read more about their products here.

You can more about hydration in horses in this issue’s veterinary article by Dr Maxine Brain.

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