After a weekend with no domestic “Win and You’re In” preps, the Road to the Breeders’ Cup World Championships at Del Mar picks up a convoy’s worth of momentum over the upcoming weekend, with qualifying preps set for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday on both coasts as well as overseas.
Month: September 2021
Managing A Lottery Syndicate For Dummies
Lotteries offer the common person a glimmer of hope to become rich and solve all of their financial problems. People realise these days that the more lottery tickets you hold, the better your chances of winning are.
For the UK National Lottery, there are about 14,000,000 different combinations so if you have one line, or one ticket, you one 1 in 14,000,000 chances of winning. Now if you have, say, 1000 tickets you have 1 in 14,000 chances of winning so your odds increase considerably. But purchasing 1000 tickets is beyond most people’s means. Who could afford $1000 a week? So the answer is to join a syndicate and spread the cost and share the benefits of better odds.
If you were in a 100 person syndicate paying $10 a week into the pool and you won $10,000,000 you would each win around $100,000. Not bad for your $10 investment.
When you start a syndicate you should make sure you set things up properly because there will always be disputes and arguments especially concerning people who leave or join.
Here are some suggestions:
* Put everything in writing. Set up a contract detailing the rules of your syndicate and get everyone to sign it. All members should have a copy, give a copy to a solicitor or independent adjudicator and display a copy where you can all see it. Here are some things you should include in your contract.
* Decide on the maximum number of people you allow in to your syndicate.
* If you are going to play the same numbers each time, ensure they are noted in the contract.
* Decide who will be responsible for filling out the tickets and putting the tickets on each week. Include that in the contract and ensure a system is in place to deal with occasions when this person is unavailable. The ticket stubs should be made available by this person(s) as proof that the tickets were put on.
* Decide how and who will collect weekly subscriptions.
* Decide what will happen if someone misses a subscription – will they be excluded from a win, or will their subscription be made up by others? If someone misses a set number of consecutive subscriptions, you might want to exclude them fro the syndicate and allow someone else in. – Whatever you decide, ensure it is in the contract.
* Decide what happens with minor prizes. Do they get carried over and saved for distribution at a later date (for example Christmas) or are they shared out when the amount reaches a certain level. Or do you play additional lines when there’s a roll over for example?
* Check your local tax laws to see whether you need to declare the syndicate for tax purposes.
* Check with your employer to ensure you have permission to run a syndicate on their premises and in their time.
* Decide how people can leave and join your syndicate. If you have a maximum of 20 people allowed, you might have a waiting list of people who want to join.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but any contract is better than no contract at all.
The most common kind of dispute is when someone has missed a payment, and the syndicate have a win that week. If it is the jackpot – there will be arguments over whether that person should be included in the payout. Decide now, document it and get everyone to sign up to the rules. Even if you have been running a syndicate for years, it is not too late to initiate a contract. Get everyone together, discuss and agree the rules, get them down on paper and get everyone to sign up to them.
The same applies to family syndicates. To avoid any rifts and arguments, make sure everyone knows the rules.
Ask The Nutrition Experts: What Can I Do To Help My OTTB Gain Condition?
Question: My 8-year-old Thoroughbred gelding, Caboose, is thin, actually thinner than he was when he came off the track a year ago (ribs on full display). He's turned out for 14-18 hours a day and receives the following ration: five flakes of grass hay, 7 lb (3.2 kg) high-fat grain, 3 cups corn oil, 1 lb (0.45 kg) balancer pellet, 1.5 lb (0.7 kg) of a flax/rice bran supplement, and other supplements (biotin, digestive support, and devil's claw). He's in minimal work. We've investigated dental problems and gastric ulcer issues. Any suggestions?
Answer from Kentucky Equine Research: From my review, the current diet should be supplying appropriate nutrition for weight gain, if not oversupplying key nutrients. When body condition scoring him, is the visibility of his ribs your main concern, or is he lacking condition in general (topline, flanks, etc.)?
A description of the pasture would have been helpful here, as good-quality forage can have a significant impact on the horse's overall health and wellness. Providing free-choice access to good-quality hay and pasture often provides a large portion of the horse's caloric needs. When weight gain is needed, providing free-choice access to hay is recommended, particularly in cases of limited pasture.
With this in mind, five flakes of grass hay may not be supplying enough forage depending on the weight of the flakes and pasture availability and quality. Switching to a high-calorie forage, like alfalfa, would boost the number of calories derived from forage.
Another consideration is the amount of dietary fat in Caboose's diet, as you are feeding several high-fat feedstuffs (concentrate, corn oil, rice bran). Studies have shown a decrease in fiber digestion and utilization when large amounts of soybean oil were fed.
To simplify the feeding program but supply appropriate nutrition, I suggest reducing the number of feeds and supplements offered to just one or two. I would choose one energy-dense feed and feed that according to the manufacturer's recommendations. Because you are trying to increase Caboose's body condition, you will find yourself feeding close to the upper limits of those recommendations. It would not be unusual, for instance, to find yourself feeding 10-12 lb (4.5-5.5 kg) of feed daily or even a little more. Increasing meal size should be done slowly, over the course of 10-14 days.
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Offering a third meal will allow for smaller grain meals and will help maximize digestibility and feed utilization. Including a ration balancer is unnecessary when feeding 7 lb (3.2 kg) of fortified feed, resulting in overfeeding micronutrients.
Horses that struggle to maintain a healthy weight, despite receiving appropriate nutrition, often benefit from a daily digestive health product that supports optimal health and digestive function. EquiShure is one such product; it is a unique digestive buffer that features a protective coating to ensure its delivery to the hindgut.
EquiShure can help balance the support fiber digestion and potentially improve feed efficiency, ultimately resulting in weight gain. EquiShure can be fed along with your current digestive health supplement or you can consider using the total-tract digestive buffer RiteTrac as it contains both gastric support and EquiShure. Australian horse owners should consider these products.
For a horse in light exercise, this feeding rate is relatively high to not see improvement in weight and condition. Further consultation with your veterinarian may be needed to determine any underlying reasons for Caboose's elevated energy needs.
Reprinted courtesy of Kentucky Equine Research. Visit ker.com for the latest in equine nutrition and management, and subscribe to Equinews to receive these articles directly
The post Ask The Nutrition Experts: What Can I Do To Help My OTTB Gain Condition? appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
Antioxidants For GGT Syndrome In Training Racehorses
Blood analyses of Thoroughbred racehorses can reveal elevations in the enzyme gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT). In what appear to be otherwise healthy horses, the significance of these high GGT values remains unclear. Using advanced metabolomic, viral and chemistry techniques, veterinarians suggest that “GGT syndrome” in fit racehorses could be related to oxidative stress.
“The horse's body produces excess GGT in the face of liver, pancreatic, and kidney disease, particularly injury to the bile duct. Concomitant increases in other liver enzymes, however, usually do not occur, suggesting that primary liver disease does not explain elevated GGT levels seen in racehorses,” explained Peter Huntington, B.V.Sc., M.A.C.V.Sc., director of nutrition, Kentucky Equine Research.
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Elevated GGT levels may be caused by:
- Hypoxia (decreased oxygen reaching tissues);
- Infection;
- Toxicity (e.g., pyrrolizidine alkaloids from toxic plants);
- Liver injury;
- Hepatic glycogen depletion and repletion;
- Overtraining; and
- Oxidative stress associated with inadequate selenium or glutathione
Previous studies show that GGT levels tend to increase with racing frequency and cumulative training load and then decrease with recovery. This trend in GGT raises the possibility that oxidative stress and oxidative depletion play a role in the syndrome.
In a recent study, veterinarians collected blood samples from Thoroughbred racehorses.* GGT values were analyzed, as were other liver values, selenium levels, viral load, and metabolomics. Comparisons were made between horses that did and did not have elevated GGT.
“Many of the potential causes of GGT syndrome were ruled out based on this testing, including viral hepatitis. One particularly interesting finding was that while selenium concentrations in horses with high GGT levels were within normal limits, they were significantly lower than selenium levels in horses with normal GGT,” noted Huntington.
These low selenium levels were reported in earlier studies and may reflect reduced antioxidant capacity related to oxidative stress. That said, one investigation found that selenium supplementation did not prevent increased levels of GGT in racehorses in training. In contrast, supplementation with the powerful antioxidant coenzyme Q10, such as Nano-Q10, can increase serum coenzyme Q10 levels.
“Racehorses in training with higher coenzyme Q10 levels had significantly lower GGT levels in one study. In addition, supplementation with EO-3, a marine-derived omega-3 fatty acid supplement, was associated with a significant reduction in GGT levels in horses in training,” Huntington said.
Overall, GGT syndrome is likely multifactorial rather than a result of a single mechanism, including oxidative stress. But, according to Huntington, there are some nutritional strategies that may be used to manage it, such as supplementing the horse's diet with antioxidants.
Read more about Kentucky Equine Research's work on GGT: The Effect of Long-chain Omega-3 (EO-3) Supplementation on Blood Serum Gamma-glutamyltransferase(GGT) Levels and Inflammation Post-exercise in Thoroughbred Racehorses.
*Mann, S., J.D. Ramsay, J.J. Wakshlag, T. Stokol, S. Reed, and T.J. Divers. 2021. Investigating the pathogenesis of high-serum gamma-glutamyl transferase activity in Thoroughbred racehorses: A series of case-control studies. Equine Veterinary Journal:13435.
Reprinted courtesy of Kentucky Equine Research. Visit ker.com for the latest in equine nutrition and management, and subscribe to Equinews to receive these articles directly
The post Antioxidants For GGT Syndrome In Training Racehorses appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.
