Here are my general thoughts on the study. First, it would be interesting to know why certain animals were excluded before choosing the study participants (inevitably they exclude heart patients from a study of a heart drug if you get my drift). That aside, pushing earlier bone strength so that immature animals can withstand the stress of questionable treatment (i.e. training and racing two year olds), just doesn't seem like a good objective, or even a good idea. Then comes the idea of supplementing a diet with a substance which would naturally be in the diet if it was normal to begin with. If the mares and foals were on a good quality grass and forage diet to begin with, this normally has silicon in it, so why create a supplement to correct a diet? Nature intended young horses to grow up on a type of forage, develop relatively slowly (compared to racing standards), on a relatively high silicon diet (which would naturally also vary throughout the season because it depends on the maturity of the forage). So pushing too much silicon in spring for instance when nature has designed the plants to supply it in summer,fall when perhaps Vitamin D is also well supplied, and all other nutrients working in concert. Then along come humans tinkering with the system so they can make a product which horsey people will pay for because they think science can come up with something better than millions of years of genetic selection , "in the field" testing, you might call it. If people just stop messing up the horses digestive system,for example overloading with grain, or making them develop faster, I think it would work a lot better.