few sips of water after running hard

Question
hello ma'am, i believe that when a racehorse runs hard in the race or in the workouts, the trainer provides few sips of water or rum. may i know why? should it be provided immediately or after cooling out the horse?

Answer
Hi Rohit,

Thank you for your question.  Horses prefer to drink immediately after exercise and after eating grain...and its important to let them do so.  Drinking after exercise is necessary for the horse to re-hydrate, replenishing the water lost from work and sweating.  The longer the horse goes after exercise without drinking, the more apt he is to lose the urge to drink...and the less apt he is to adequately re-hydrate.  To prevent your horse becoming dehydrated, allow him to drink when he's thirsty.  There is a belief that allowing a hot horse to drink too much leads to laminitis and/or colic.  This is not entirely true.  Allowing any horse to drink too much cold water is risky, but allowing any horse (including a hot horse) to drink water that's at ambient temperature is just fine.  My suggestion is to prepare water buckets for exercising horses in advance of a workout, and by the time the horse is done working the water has warmed to outdoor temperatures rather than underground (fresh water) temperature.

Thanks, Corlena