Gallop sets? You are lucky to be able to gallop at all in this weather. My horses mostly go out for 4-5 miles of walking in this weather, at the most. Some limited trotting, and very little canter work. Heat + humidity levels are just way too hot in this weather. I have one horse I do some canter work with and he will be soaked or have sweat dripping off his belly in a 30-45 minute work out.
4-5 miles of walking is enough to have a horse blowing, with all veins showing in this heat- and still needing a long hose off to get that temperature down.
I don’t gallop at all in the summer. I know people who do 10-12 miles in this heat, and in my opinion, they are just asking for problems. I know one lady who likes to do 7 miles of walk/trot and I thought that was pushing it on a hot morning.
I have to add electrolytes to my food/drinks in the summer so I don’t think you can go wrong by upping the amount of electrolytes he is getting. Someone told I don’t need to add salt to my food or drinks- that I don’t sweat that much- and I had to assure them that I definitely do sweat that much and will crave salt all summer long. I make up oral rehydration solution using orange juice or even add salt to my gatorade.
A 1,100-pound horse loses 20 grams of sodium per day in bodily fluids, not including sweat. This equates to about 1 ounce of plain table salt (sodium chloride). A horse standing around and not exercising but under high heat conditions might require 2 to 3 ounces just to meet basic losses without even being exercised.
When selecting an electrolyte supplement, it is critically important to first meet those baseline needs. Some concentrated commercial electrolyte supplements might only supply about six grams of sodium per ounce (and others much less). Therefore, just to meet baseline sodium requirements a minimum of 3 to 9+ ounces of electrolyte mix would have to fed per day before it would start to replace the sweat electrolytes. Take this into consideration when selecting a supplement.
Low blood potassium is common in horses that are stressed by heat. However, this doesn’t mean that potassium intake is inadequate. The body puts a priority on preserving sodium. If levels are low, the kidneys will excrete more potassium instead of sodium. To remedy low blood potassium, increase sodium to meet needs.
