Page 20 - May 2009 The Game

20 The Game, May 2009
Improving an Old School Method
be used everyday as a preventative measure after a work or galloping. 20 minutes a day, as part of the grooming process.”
Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper
OPTIMIZING THE OMEGAS
With the advancement of medicine and technology, trainers are now inundated with many new gadgets or lotions which are designed and touted as being the “next best thing”. Many trainers however
Game Ready is temperature controlled to
We’ve known about the bene ts of feeding a fat-supplemented
diet to horses for more than 20 years now. But these days, it’s not enough to just talk about fats in the general sense. Researchers are now looking at the bene ts of speci c types of fats, and their ratios in the diet – and the most interesting of these seems to be the ‘omegas’.
omega-3 fatty acids in the diet, and reducing the omega-6’s – although omega-6 fatty acids are also essential and necessary nutrients. Not all in ammation is bad, after all: it’s a process which is needed to ght infection and heal injured tissues. And the relatively minor percentage of fat which horses consume, as compared to humans, means that omega-6 fatty acids have a pretty small impact on their overall health.
prefer to stick to the tried and true, the old school method, so to speak. Why mess with something that they have been doing for hundreds of years? .....“that’s the way we have always done it”.
as low as 1°C and also has
four levels of pressure which can be adjusted depending on the issue it is being used for.
What if there
was a product which took an old school method and enhanced it to provide a more bene cial outcome?
Canadian Distributor for Game Ready more than 3 years ago, “Tendonitis, suspensories, hock issues, bucked shins. The circulation combined with the consistent cold is the key behind Game Ready.”
Well that is exactly what they have done with the Game Ready System.
The Game Ready System provides cold with an intermittent compression which creates circulation to release and ush away edema, toxins, or dead blood cells, out of the horse’s system. Much like the effects of standing a horse in a tub of ice water, or applying a poultice wrap, except without the skin irritation or damage to the hoof.
Game Ready has been welcomed into many equine disciplines in the United States for the past 5 years, while a human version of the system has proven to be a success since being introduced in the US nearly a decade ago.
Here’s a little of what we do know. Omega-3 fatty acids are one of a group of “essential fatty acids”, or EFAs, which means they must be sourced from the diet (the horse can’t manufacture them by himself). Omega-3 fatty acids are derived from alpha-linolenic acid, a polyunsaturated fat that can be sourced from canola, sun ower, and soybean oils, and ax seeds, a.k.a. linseed, among other foods. Two varieties of omega-3 fatty acids often seen on food labels are EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid).
The Game Ready System is a dry application therefore providing a consistent cold as well as compression which sends oxygenated blood to help heal or prevent injuries.
“The Game Ready System is gaining popularity in Canada in the equine disciplines where the horses make money.” says Nancy with a smile, “Injury prevention is the key to the ability to perform. It is all about caring for the horse.”
of a variety of other fatty acids normally found in horses’ blood. But just because EFAs are absorbed by horses, doesn’t necessarily mean they will be bene cial, she emphasizes.
“It is a squeeze, hold and release.” says Game Ready national distributor Nancy Berman, “The system creates circulation to ush out the bad and bring in the new oxygenated blood.”
The human division of Game Ready was introduced to Canada in July 2008 and already the athletes are embracing the technology. “National Sports Teams, University Athletic Departments, and the CFL are all using Game Ready because of the preventative and injury healing bene ts.”
Preliminary research in horses has yielded mixed results for omega-3 supplementation. In one study, DHA failed to mitigate pulmonary in ammation and exercise-induced bleeding in racehorses, though
Ice cold water from the machine’s reservoir is pumped through the wraps, applying a deep penetrating and constant cold into the soft tissue. The dry application helps to eliminate any skin irritations or hoof damage you sometimes face with standing in buckets of ice. And Poultice wraps only cool until it dries while the Game Ready system can provide the healing applications for as long as it is needed.
Human or equine, the Game Ready System allows you to embrace a more bene cial way of applying “old school” methods.
In several species, including humans, omega-3’s have been shown to contribute to decreased in ammatory responses. Anecdotal evidence also supports their use
in another, horses on an omega-3 supplemented diet had reduced in ammatory responses to exercise.
Three different types of wraps are available, tendon boots, full leg boots (hoof past knee) and hock wraps.
For more information on purchasing or renting the Game Ready System contact Nancy Berman at Sports Recovery Systems 416-994-6940, email: nberman@ sportsrecoverysystems.com or visit www.gameready.ca
in alleviating the symptoms of osteoarthritis, reducing allergic hypersensitivities, and easing exercise-induced bronchial constriction.
There’s some good early evidence that DHA supplementation has
the potential to improve sperm quality and quantity in stallions, and improve the ability of semen
“Unfortunately it is mostly when the horses are already injured that people contact me.” says Nancy, “It should
Omega-6 fatty acids, in contrast, come from linoleic acid, another polyunsaturated fat which is found in horse-friendly sources like corn, saf ower, and cottonseed oil, as well as black-oil sun ower seeds. They have the opposite effect
to withstand cooling and shipping. And mares fed supplemental corn oil (rich in omega-6) or a 50/50 mix of corn and linseed oil (rich in omega-3) passed along higher fatty acid levels to their foals through their milk, though the jury’s still out as to whether that bene ted the immune response in the babies.
Sports Recovery System’s Nancy Berman, is the Canadian Distributor of the Game Ready System.
“It is going to work on any ‘itis’”, boasts Nancy, who became the
Who hasn’t heard by now of the health bene ts of “the omegas” – fatty acids which are supposed to bolster the immune system and help treat everything from heart disease to hemorrhoids? But just because they’ve become buzzwords doesn’t mean we fully understand their impact. Are omega-3 fatty acids as important in an equine diet as they seem to be for humans? How about omega-6? These are questions still under investigation.
Sheryl S. King, PhD, professor
in the Department of Animal Science, Food, and Nutrition
at Southern Illinois University, recently published the results of a study exploring whether horses can absorb EFAs given orally. King fed 16 horses a supplement containing two forms of omega-3 fatty acids, and found that blood plasma levels of both were signi cantly increased in the supplemented horses after only three days on the regimen. Administration of the supplement also altered circulating levels
Foals of 2009
Silver Train colt out of Red Skimmer x Gulch. Owned by Paul O’Brien
of omega-3’s: they increase the in ammatory response, aggravate allergic hypersensitivity, and increase bronchial constriction during exercise.
Though this early work looks promising, much more research needs to be done before we really understand the pros and cons of “the omegas”.
That’s why the emphasis is usually on delivering more
Equine Health
By Karen Briggs
Dave Landry Photo