In addition to supplementing the diet with fat there are nutritional factors known as ergogenic aids which can increase or improve the production of energy when it is needed during racing. These nutritional factors are normal substances found in feed which act much like vitamins in normal metabolism. In fact, some substances classified as ergogenic aids are also classified as vitamins. To understand how ergogenic aids work you need to know something of how energy is produced in the body and how this energy is used to produce muscular activity. To understand this, it is necessary to know something about biochemistry.
All energy comes from the chemical bonds which hold atoms into molecules.
Various enzymes within the cells interact with glycogen and fatty acids to break the molecules apart and transfer the released energy into ATP, where it is kept until it is transferred to molecules of the muscle fibers where it is used to cause contraction of muscles. This process is commonly referred to as metabolism. The difference between anaerobic metabolism and aerobic metabolism is that oxygen is needed in the aerobic process, while the anaerobic process produces energy without oxygen. The muscular activity produced during a race comes from both aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. Some people have thought that the Quarter Horse uses mostly anaerobic metabolism for the energy of a race, but recent studies in equine exercise physiology have shown that most energy used in even a short race comes from aerobic metabolism.