For horses prone to excitability we recommend feeding a diet lower in starch and sugar to avoid any potential ‘sugar rushes’ caused by dietary carbohydrates.  Instead, we provide calories from non-heating fibre and oil.  An ideal product is Dodson & Horrell Staypower Cubes, which are low in starch and sugar but provide all the nutrition your horse needs to compete.  We do suggest using the cubes rather than the muesli, as the mix is slightly higher in sugar so may not be as effective at avoiding unwanted fizz!

Every food ingredient has an energy value, or level of calories that it provides.  These calories are used for fuel for cells within the body.  If this fuel is not used immediately then it is stored as either glycogen within the muscles or as fat.

These calories can come from carbohydates (cereals, sugar within grass and hay), oil (added to the diet or present in some cereals such as soya) or fibre (present in varying amounts in most ingredients but higher in forages).

Carbohydrates (starch and sugar) are digested in the horse’s small intestine, broken down into glucose, which is absorbed rapidly into the bloodstream.  They therefore provide ‘fast-release’ energy with a quick increase in blood sugar levels from around 1-4 hours after eating them.  This is useful for speed and sparkle and we use it for horses who are showjumping, playing polo, some dressage horses and those who need extra ‘oomph’.  Competition Mix is an example of a feed that provides plenty of fast release energy.

Oil is digested in the small intestine and broken down into complex fats, which are absorbed into the bloodstream and processed by the liver.  They can then either be stored or used as fuel.  Fibre is digested in the large intestine, or ‘hindgut’ and broken down into volatile fatty acids, which are also used as fuel.  The process of converting and releasing energy from oil and fibre takes a relatively long time; energy is released from 4-8 hours after eating them.  Oil and fibre provide ‘slow-release’ energy, which is ideal for stamina.  We use them in eventers, hunters, endurance horses and also in excitable or fizzy horses. Staypower Cubes and Muesli are an example of a feed that provides plenty of slow release energy.

It is important to remember that energy and calories are effectively the same thing. As your horse is slightly overweight we need to allow him to lose this excess weight before using high energy (high calorie) feeds. We would recommend that you monitor his weight every fortnight aiming for a condition fat score of 2.5-3.

When your horse is at his ideal body weight we can consider feeding a product appropriate for good doers in medium to hard work such as Dodson & Horrell Competition Concentrate. This feed has been formulated specifically for horses that maintain weight well but require energy for workload. Competition Concentrate is fed at a lower rate than conventional concentrates ensuring that your horses’ nutrient requirements are met without contributing to weight gain.  It is also formulated to enable you to add a small amount of oats to the diet if extra energy is needed, without unbalancing the vitamin and mineral content.

Topline in horses is used to describe the muscle coverage over the top of the horse’s neck, back and hindquarters. The predominant ‘topline’ muscles are the rhomboideus, splenius, trapezius, longissimus dorsi and gluteal muscles which enable the horse to collect and extend the neck, lift the shoulder and forehand, flex the back and engage the hind legs.  It is important that the difference between fat and muscle within the neck is clear, therefore owners should get their hands on the horse using body fat scoring.

The only way to build muscle is through an appropriate exercise regime and by providing essential dietary support together; neither method will work alone. A common myth is that fat can be turned to muscle, however this is unfortunately not the case.

Muscle has a tremendous capacity to respond to training, with muscle fibres needing to stretch and lay down new cells in order to grow. Single bouts of exercise have very little effect on a horse’s fitness, therefore we need to train the muscles through repeated bouts of exercise to improve fitness.

Although it can be tempting to get cracking with your horse’s new fitness regime it is important to get the balance right between fitness and injury. Ensure you give your horse time to rest and recover between training sessions to allow muscle recovery and do not increase the intensity of the exercise suddenly.

To encourage muscle development a strength training programme should be initiated, with specific exercises to target the key muscle groups and engage the muscles correctly. Ensure that your horse is working actively and correctly even when out for a short hack to promote correct muscle development. One of the most effective ways to develop the hindquarters is through the use of hill work. Encouraging your horse to walk actively uphill (no jogging allowed!) approximately seven times, twice a week to engage the gluteal muscles. Don’t worry if you do not live in a hilly area, cavaletti poles encourage the gluteals to work through lifting of the hind leg so can be utilised instead!

To develop the longissimus dorsi muscle core strength exercises can be used that will improve tone and flexibility such as ‘carrot stretches’. These stretches must be done whilst the muscles are warm to avoid damage so ensure you warm up first! Take a piece of carrot and encourage your horse to stretch to each side and to the chest, repeating several times and ensuring you are performing the exercise evenly on both sides. Ask four your vet or physiotherapist’s advice if you are unsure.

The main component of muscle and body tissue is protein which is supplied in limited amounts by forage (grass, hay and haylage). However working horses will require supplementation in the form of a fully balanced compound feed or balancer. Some riders can be afraid of feeding protein in the belief that it will cause excitable behaviour - it won’t! Fizziness and excitability may be the result of a horse having excess energy through being fed too many calories, but not too much protein. It is not just the level of protein in a feed we need to consider but more importantly the quality, determined by the amino acid ‘building blocks’ from which it is made up. The horse’s body can produce some amino acids, however there are a number of essential amino acids such as lysine, which when limited will limit muscle development.

The most common problem that we see is a horse being fed less than the recommended amount of hard feed, as extra calories aren’t needed, without ‘topping-up’ with a balancer to supply essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals. Dodson & Horrell recommend either feeding the full recommended amount of a performance feed that contains lysine or, if your horse does not need the calories, using a high quality balancer that contains lysine. If you feed a chaff alongside your feeds consider using alfalfa, a natural source of high quality protein.

Changing your horse onto a high quality protein diet, alongside an appropriate exercise regime should be sufficient to enable topline development within six weeks, however if no improvement is made a protein supplement could be considered.

We generally recommend leaving at least 90 minutes in between feeding a concentrate feed an exercising your horse.  This allows the food to pass normally through the stomach and into the small intestine, minimising the risk of choke or colic.  Hay or haylage is generally fine to feed up until you begin to tack up.

One exception to this rule is feeding alfalfa chaff before exercise to provide a fibre matt in the stomach and reduce gastric acid ‘splashing’ onto the sensitive squamous mucosa. We recommend feeding half a scoop of alfalfa chaff half an hour before exercise in these cases, particularly if your horse has a sensitive stomach or will be doing any fast work or jumping.

The body contains 60-70% water and this water plays an essential role in transporting blood cells and nutrients around the body. The water in the body is also important for thermoregulation - during exercise sweat is produced, which then evaporates from the skins surface helping us to keep cool. Sweat also contains electrolytes including sodium, chloride, potassium, calcium and magnesium. These electrolytes play an important role in both nerve and muscle function.

The Effects of Dehydration

Dehydration occurs when you or your horse lose excessive amounts of water and electrolytes. If you become dehydrated you might notice that you feel dizzy, cannot concentrate or even feel sick. In your horse signs of dehydration can include decreased appetite, increased risk of impaction colic and reduced athletic performance. It's amazing how much sweat your horse can produce; for example after a cross country phase horses can lose 15-20 litres of sweat and an endurance horse could lose double this during a race!

It can be difficult to monitor how much your horse is sweating and the skin-pinch test is very inaccurate. However, a good way of estimating fluid losses is to use a weigh-tape. It is generally accepted that 90% of a horse's weight loss after exercise is due to sweating and 1kg of bodyweight equates to approximately 1 litre of fluids. Following initial research on 100 horses at Warwickshire College our scientifically validated weigh-tape has been used to measure post-exercise body weight losses at Burghley Horse Trials.

Fluid and electrolyte losses must be replaced to avoid dehydration. Simply drinking a bottle of water or offering your horse water after exercise will not be enough to re-hydrate properly as the body cannot hold onto water without the presence of electrolytes. Drinking a sports drink that contains electrolytes will help you re-hydrate and replenish any losses. Similarly if your horse is losing more than 10kg of body weight after work you will need to feed an electrolyte supplement such as Dodson & Horrell Electrolytes.

Causes of laminitis: Laminitis is a disease which can be triggered by a number of different situations including feed overload, obesity, toxaemia, trauma and some drugs, such as corticosteroids.

Prevention and managements of horses and ponies with laminitis:

1. Monitor your horse’s body weight and condition - Obesity is a predisposing factor in the onset of laminitis. Do not allow your horse to get too fat – weigh and condition score every two weeks using a weigh tape and condition score card (you can purchase them from Dodson & Horrell!) Although it is important that your pony loses some weight, it is crucial that this happens gradually.
    
2. Do not starve your horse – Commonly owners are led to believe that they should starve a pony with laminitis, but would you starve an ill person? It is vital that the pony with laminitis receives a fibrous diet supplemented with minerals and vitamins to keep their metabolism working. By restricting fibre intake too much you may risk inducing hyperlipaemia. This occurs when high levels of fat are released into blood in response to starvation and can be fatal.
    
3. Give them a high fibre diet – It is a good idea to have your hay analysed to establish its feed value (Dodson and Horrell offer a forage testing service for a small fee). If your hay was found to have a high feed value, you could try soaking it for 12 hours before feeding it. This will "leach" some of the energy from the hay – thereby helping to reduce your horse’s calorie intake. Another method of providing a high fibre, low calorie diet, which can help to control weight gain, is to “dilute” the hay with good quality oat straw (50:50). However, feeding straw is not advised for horses with dental problems because straw is coarser and less digestible then hay and does require thorough chewing. Straw is also not advised for horses prone to colic.
    
4. Avoid lush grass – The flush of grass growth in spring and autumn are well-known risk factors for laminitics, but I would also recommend that you avoid frosty pasture in the winter. Recent research suggests that the fructan concentration in grass is higher at this time. If you do need to turn out on frosty grass then may I suggest that you provide hay in the paddock to discourage them from eating the grass until it has thawed. Using an equine muzzle or strip grazing can also help to limit your horse’s grass intake.
    
5. Feed a balanced diet – Forage alone will not provide your horse with all the essential minerals and vitamins, particularly the antioxidants she requires. To ensure your pony receives a completely balanced diet I recommend feeding a feed balancer e.g. Ultimate Balancer. Ultimate Balancer also contains MSM, an anti-inflammatory, which may help to reduce any inflammation as a result of the laminitis. Alternatively you could feed a fully fortified chaff such as Safe & Sound. Both Ultimate Balancer and Safe and Sound contain Dodson & Horrell’s unique Quality Life Care (QLC) antioxidant package.
    
6. Important new research carried out by Dr R. Neville and Dodson & Horrell has shown that horses and ponies suffering from chronic laminitis produce higher levels of free radicals in their body.
    
7. These free radicals damage the body's cells and tissues including muscles and DNA, through the process of oxidation. Furthermore, it is now thought that free radical damage may actually be involved in the pathology of laminitis.
    
8. Dietary antioxidants such as Vitamin C, Vitamin E, selenium and copper neutralise free radicals, thereby preventing them from damaging the body.
    
9. Studies by Dodson & Horrell have shown that the best way to enhance the total antioxidant defence system of the horse is to feed a combination of classical dietary antioxidants and key plant components (Lowe, 2002). For instance, the horse can only use Vitamin E once, although if other antioxidants are present Vitamin E can be recycled and used to neutralise more free radicals.
    
10. Providing supplementary antioxidants in the diet of horses and ponies prone to laminitis is essential. Many Dodson & Horrell feeds contain QLC, a unique antioxidant package.

If you have an older horse that is struggling to chew hay and haylage, fibre intake is likely to be considerably reduced. Fibre is an essential dietary requirement for any horse. As a guide, your horse should receive at least 2-2.5% of their bodyweight as dry forage each day to ensure healthy digestive function. It is vital that you replace the forage that your horse in not receiving and this can be done by creating what is commonly referred to as a 'haynet in a bucket.'

Our forage replacer recipe is recommended by the Veteran Horse Society and combines Dodson & Horrell Classic Fibre Cubes, KwikBeet and Alfalfa. The feeding guideline is 600g dry weight of each component per 100kg of body weight. Therefore, a horse with an ideal weight of 500kg would require 3kg of each product per day. This quantity should preferably be divided into several small meals and spread throughout the day in order to try mimic normal feeding behaviour.

Forage is an essential part of all horse and pony diets. Horses have evolved as trickle-feeders and feeding insufficient forage can result in problems such as stereotypic behaviours, gastric ulcers and/or colic. Horses will eat between 2-2.5% of their bodyweight as dry forage per day. Depending on the usage of the horse some forage may be replaced by concentrate. However, if your horse needs to lose weight it may be necessary to restrict forage intake. We recommend a restriction of no less than 1.5% of body weight unless under veterinary supervision.

There are many reasons why your horse may have developed loose droppings. It seems likely that on this occasion it may be linked to his recent change in forage type. Hay and haylage are fermented in the horses large intestine with the help from a population of bacteria and other important microbes. A change in diet can disrupt this sensitive hindgut environment causing your horse's droppings to become loose.

In this instance, we recommend that you use Dodson & Horrell Digestive Support. Digestive Support is a comprehensive pre-biotic that uses a combined approach to ensure that digestive disturbances are minimised by supporting beneficial bacteria.

Another thing to remember is that haylage has a higher moisture content than hay thus the amount of fibre your horse receives from the same weight will be much less. As a result you will need to feed more haylage than hay to fulfil your horse’s fibre requirements but remember it is usually of higher nutritional value and you will be feeding more calories. To enable you to calculate how much haylage your horse needs we recommend that you have it analysed using our Forage Analysis service.