Vitamin E and the Endurance Horse

The role of Vitamin E in the Endurance Horse.

Endurance horses have a required need for fast recoveries, good body condition and overall health due to the specific demands of the sport. In order to achieve this, we as owners and riders need to stringently evaluate the horse diet and consider whether or not the horse's dietary needs are being correctly met.

One of these dietary needs is Vitamin E. Vitamin E is responsible for several functions in the mature working horse. (I won't address growing horses in this- that is another topic for another day)

For the mature working horse, Vitamin E works as an antioxidant, which is important in protecting tissues and cells from being degraded by free radicals. A horse with insufficient stores of Vitamin E can suffer from muscle soreness/stiffness after a bout of intense exercise - this speaks directly to endurance horse to me!

Where do horses get Vitamin E from?

Pasture can provide the idle horse with sufficient amounts of Vitamin E, however more strenous exercise may require additional supplementation. When grasses dried and baled(hay/winter) Vitamin E is lost - therefore for the stall kept horse, or pasture kept horse over wintering may also require 'help' in this area during those times when fresh forage is unavailable or less than prime condition.

What is Vitamin E?

Vitamin E is a group of substances, two of which are --alpha-tocopherol and gamma-tocopherol. These two contain the anti-oxidant properties that are required in the horse. The Alpha - is the most active (biological) and most common type found in the horse's body.

Commercial 'stable' sources of Vitamin E have been a challenge for equine nutritionists to develop - as in order to make alpha tocopherol stable enough for use,(in feeds) by chemical transition it becomes dl-alpha tocopherol acetate.

Supplementing with a synthetic form of Vitamin E is possible, however it is less effective in providing plasma tocopherol. Because of the lower cost, this is the type of Vitamin E most commonly added to feeds - even though it is extremely limited in bio-availability. Therefore a feed can say it contains Vitamin E - but which one?

I find at this point, it's much easier to get on the horn with your feed manufacturer and ask specifically in order to get the right answer.

KER did a study on the differences in synthetic Vitamin E, vs feeding natural Vitamin E.

The horses fed the natural supplement (natural sourced ) increased the baseline plasma by 56%, compared to the study group that were being fed the synthetic.

So that begs the question, finding the difference , where to get the right Vitamin E? As far as I can tell, that my friends is between you and your feed company!
A quick search of google reveals Smart Pak for has a natural source available, as well as a select few others. I'm sure there are more.