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Freshen-up horses that have been in work for a few months and not
performing.
A Lang's
intravenous hypertonic
saline infusion creates a hypertonic expansion within the blood - an
increase in salts in excess of water. This promotes increased water
resorption in the kidneys and stimulates the thirst reflex to restore
the fluid/salts balance in the blood.
The requirement to maintain plasma
osmolality with a relatively narrow range prompts a horse to drink
almost immediately after administration of a Lang's Solution and
overcomes any reluctance to drink.
Where performance on the racetrack is well below their best but horses
still appear in good health and skin elasticity is normal, several
months in work may be enough to bring on adrenal exhaustion. A side
effect of this is reduced adrenal output, which may cause a loss of
salts in the urine in excess of fluids.
The depletion of body salts reduces
cellular efficiency and produces sub-optimal athletic performance. At
morning trackwork a horses' overall times may be excellent, but fractional
times may reveal they are not going to the post strongly.
If training is carried out "on the
bit" and horses are seldom pushed right out, the tendency to wilt
under pressure often does not show up until they race. Such horses
appear to be going three-quarter pace behind the leaders until they turn
into the straight, but when the pressure is on they fade. It may be
observed that such horses are not even blowing when they have completed
the distance.
A further group of horses that fall into
this category are the "hard pullers" which make it difficult
to regulate the quality of work.
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