A low glycemic diet will not stop pacing caused by the deprivation of a years long or lifelong companion. This is a mental/psychological behavior caused by anguish and deprivation. Horses are feeling, living beings with a complex social and emotional life - these things cannot be taken away by diet changes.
'Low glycemic' is a misnomer for a diet composed mostly of low glycemic index foods. The idea is that after eating the feed, the blood sugar level will change, depending on what is fed.
Many people feel they have created a better equine diet by not feeding grains like oats and corn.
However, with horses there are many more variables that affect the actual blood sugar impact of the feed than simply what is fed. Rate of intake, in particular, can affect the affect of a feed on blood sugar.
The even more difficult question is if these dietary changes were actually to change a horse's blood sugar levels (either to reduce, raise or make them more consistent), what effects can that actually have.
However, the commercial products aren't always changed in a way that has a material effect on overall diet, or even, that has any possibility of benefitting. We have so many buzzwords today - this kind of sugar is bad, that kind is good...
There are a great many claims made for horse feeds that play on the emotions and come under the heading of marketing. Careful analysis of a commercial product is needed to determine if it really is capable of changing the actual nutrients consumed overall in the ways claimed or with the benefits claimed; often it does not.
It takes going way beyond the usual buzzwords and internet spiels and marketing, to really understand how feeds are utilized by animals and whether specific ingredients really do affect nutrition and performance in the ways claimed, or even, if any affects they do have, are beneficial.
The more I study this subject, the more I realize that there is an awful lot of misinformation going around about 'low glycemic feeds'.
