There's a lot of old horsemen's myths still running rampant today.
Some are harmless, but others - well it seems like they really should be debunked but some people insist on still believing them.
Since it's
Disclosure: I am outright stealing this from a post on FB. It is credited to Dr. David Marlin.*
After you hose your horse off, do you scrape the water off or no?
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| Hot and sweaty at Regionals 2017. |
MYTHS
Myth 1 - “You should never put cold water on a hot horse"
Explanation - Ice-cold water(0-5°C) on hot horses does not cause shock, laminitis, kidney damage, muscle damage, tying-up or heart attacks!
Explanation - Ice-cold water(0-5°C) on hot horses does not cause shock, laminitis, kidney damage, muscle damage, tying-up or heart attacks!
Myth 2 - “Water left on a horse will heat up and insulate and make the horse hotter."
Explanation - Flawed physics! Water is a better conductor of heat than air. A wet horse will actually cool faster than a dry one, even if humidity is 100%.
Explanation - Flawed physics! Water is a better conductor of heat than air. A wet horse will actually cool faster than a dry one, even if humidity is 100%.
Myth 3 - “Scraping is essential." Explanation - Scraping just wastes time that could be better used putting more water on to cool by conduction. Scraping also wastes water when water is in short supply. Water which could evaporate on the horse. Water evaporating on the ground doesn't cool horses down.
Myth 4 “Concentrate on large veins, arteries inside the back legs, large muscle groups"
Explanation - NO. Cooling by evaporation or conduction works by cooling the blood flowing through the small blood vessels in the skin. The more skin you cool, the quicker you cool the horse. Apply water all over.
Explanation - NO. Cooling by evaporation or conduction works by cooling the blood flowing through the small blood vessels in the skin. The more skin you cool, the quicker you cool the horse. Apply water all over.
I'll admit, I followed the old rule of always hose, scrape, hose, scrape for a long time until I read the actual science behind it. How would I have known any better? But now I just keep hosing Hampton, and then turn him right back out. In the sun! *gasp* No scraping anymore. Here's more:
Evaporation and conduction.
Ideally, I would hose Hampton and then let him sit under a fan for a while. I mean think about it - when it is 95 degrees, and you splash water on your face or over your head, do you get hotter or do you get a cooling effect?
So there's no harm in the hose, scrape method. But it seems a little pointless.
What method do you follow?
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lol i love this. personally? i'm a scraper. mostly bc i think it helps them dry faster (ie it promotes evaporation) and they're less likely to roll and/or get super dirty if they're already dry when they go out. we play the long game around here haha.
ReplyDeletethat's assuming they just got a normal wash to remove sweat post-ride. if it's after a very intense ride (like, say, running xc) i'll spend more time hosing/sponging but will still scrape when i'm finished and ready for them to dry.
but here's a little story time for you, on the off chance you're into this sort of thing: i spent my senior year in high school interning in the heat transfer lab in the mech eng department at JHU. our research project (funded by nasa omg!) was centered around using boiling as a heat transfer method in cooling technologies (like refrigerators!). on earth, this process works by a hot plate immersed in a coolant producing bubbles on its surface. as the bubbles grow (filled with hot air) gravity takes over and removes them from the surface - thus transferring the heat away from the plate. it's a low tech, extremely efficient process that has been around ever since sweet baby jesus invented fire and set a clay pot aboil.
now take this same low tech efficient heat transfer technology and try to apply it in microgravity situations like the space station or space shuttles. in the absence of gravity, surface tension takes over as the dominant force (true story: if you take a cup with a straw in it into outer space, the fluid in the cup will creep up the edges and all thru the straw, eventually coating the entire thing with a layer of fluid) and those bubbles produced on the surface of the hot place just grow and grow and coalesce into one giant big hot bubble that burns out the equipment. so we did experiments with introducing other forces (like electro magnetic currents) to mimic the effect of gravity in pushing the bubbles away from the surface - thus "forced" boiling.
it was a cool experiment and mostly just a pretty neat experience in general for my teenage self. but it also imprinted on me a deep appreciation of evaporation as a method of heat transfer lol. tho yes, the specific heat of water is higher and a coolant fluid will cool the horse's system faster, but evaporation is also pretty effective. in cases of extreme heat or exercise, prolonged hosing/sponging is your friend. but in the normal every day "hose 'em off and chuck 'em out" situation, the delta between the two isn't necessarily significant. esp when your end goal is a drier horse who won't immediately roll haha. so yea. i scrape. /storytime ;)
*applause*
ReplyDeleteI hose and hose until I feel like he's a bit cooler, but then I do scrape - partially so I can get a good "read" on whether he's actually cooled down, and partially so that he's not quite so wet when I turn him back out so that he doesn't get TOO muddy.
I did follow the advice to concentrate on the big veins, so it's good to have that demystified!
I remember the first time I heard the "hose then scrape, then hose then scrape" method. I was riding another person's horse, and she got angry at me for "continually hosing" instead of scraping the hot water off the horse. It made 0 sense to me but somehow stayed with me.
ReplyDeleteNow? Cold water, shade, and a fan are what CLEARLY cools my horse down fastest. Scraping is done after the horse has already been cooled off by the cold water, and is really only done to prevent her dripping all of the bedding in her stall.
Am I going to start screaming at anyone I see doing the hose and scrape method? Nope. As long as their horse gets cooled off one way or the other, it's fine with me.
This post challenges everything I have been taught about bathing to cool them down.. Fascinating...
ReplyDeleteI'm much too lazy to scrape and haven't done it in a long time, unless I want the horse to dry faster. Lol! Since my horses mostly get turned directly out into the sun soaked and haven't boiled to death (nor have I, actually!) I figure it's fine.
ReplyDeleteI have always hosed and scraped. But this is making me rethink this.
ReplyDeleteNot sad about skipping the scraping at all - thanks!
ReplyDeleteWhat I do depends on the situation. If the horse is hot and I have a hose, I just hose constantly all over the body until the temp comes down. If he's hot and all I have is a bucket, I prefer to get the coldest water possible and sponge everywhere, scrape, and then sponge again. If he's not that hot anymore I hose all over once and then - if he's going back outside, just toss him out. If he's coming back inside to stand in front of the fan, I scrape enough to not leave a huge puddle in the crosstie. So I guess I do a little bit of everything?
ReplyDeletePREACH!!! I FUCKING HATE THE MYTH THAT HOSING YOUR HORSE WILL MAKE HIM HOTTER.
ReplyDeleteHow interesting! Thanks for providing this info.
ReplyDeleteMind BLOWN.
ReplyDeleteKABOOM.
That said - if I have a hose (like Amanda mentioned) I don't scrape - just keep hosing. But if only a bucket I scraped and sponged. Although now....... now I have to re-evaluate everything I've ever taken as truth.
From the latest studies I've read, it seems that whether scraping is important or not depends on a lot of other factors such as humidity, how hot the horse is, and whether or not there is shade available. Evaporative cooling (no scraping) works great in dry climates, even with more intense heat, but no evaporation happens if the humidity is at 80%. The best solution, regardless, seems to be to keep putting cold water on until the heart rate comes down. If you have a cold hose, that's the ideal situation! Just keep spraying until your pony is breathing regularly and has a heart rate within normal parameters (and don't waste your time scraping). If you're out in the direct sun with high heat, high humidity, and a horse who has just exerted themselves significantly, with only luke warm water at your disposal... well... you'll have to get a bit more creative!!
ReplyDeleteI've always scraped but I never worried too much if I left some water on them. I also like letting them be in the shade or in front of a fan.
ReplyDelete