Feeding Your Horse According To Workload

The right nutrition is essential for optimum performance but feeding your horse to ensure they are getting the right nutrients can sometimes seem like a minefield.  You may have heard of the golden rules of feeding, one of the most important of which is – feed according to your horse’s bodyweight and workload. However, whilst this sounds straightforward, understanding your horse’s workload can be complex.

Horses will need different levels of daily energy according to how active or not they are, so it’s important to understand exactly what level of work your horse does to be able to support that with the right feeds. Workload is generally categorised into 4 distinct categories – maintenance, light, medium and hard and in our latest blog we will delve into exactly how each category is defined, nutritional needs for each category, and what you should be feeding to help meet those needs for optimal health and performance:

Horses at Maintenance

Horses at maintenance are those not engaged in any ridden or enforced exercise, such as retirees. Their energy needs are solely to support normal bodily functions and maintain weight. On average a 500kg horse needs around 70 Megajoules (MJ) of energy per day to support health and condition.

Ideally their daily feed should be providing around 8MJ Digestible Energy (DE) per kilo, lower calorie forages like hay will often provide this but hay can also vary in its digestible energy content significantly depending on when it was cut and the environmental conditions. Getting forage analysed for energy content can be helpful in helping to provide the right levels of energy for a horse’s workload.

Thus, many horses at maintenance can maintain their weight with just grazing and forage. However, UK pasture and forage typically lack certain trace minerals like copper, selenium, and zinc, and older forage can be deficient in vitamin E. To address these gaps, horses at maintenance should be given a comprehensive vitamin and mineral supplement like VitaStance Mineral Mix in a small amount of low-energy chaff.

Horses In Light Work

Horses in light work generally engage in activities like light hacking and schooling, mostly at walk and trot with some canter, for up to an hour daily with local, unaffiliated competitions also falling into this category. In general, the energy needs for an average 500kg horse in light work are around 84 MJ per day. However, whether your horse needs additional feed (in addition to forage) whilst undertaking light work largely depends on their ability to maintain weight. Regular weighing and Body condition scoring (BCS) is useful to help you assess your horse condition and energy needs to support their work and as a general guide a score of 3 on a 5-point scale is ideal for most leisure horses. If a horse is still overweight despite their workload, they don’t need more energy.

Good doers in light work will probably need a diet like those at maintenance, based on forage with a vitamin and mineral supplement like VitaStance Mineral Mix.  Horses that struggle more with maintaining weight, might need additional feed and feeds providing around 8-10MJ/kg digestible energy (DE), are ideal.  Feeds like CoolStance Copra can provide an excellent source of digestive fibre and oil and can be fed at around 500g per day alongside forage to provide the right levels of energy for horses in light work. However, VitaStance Mineral Mix should also be fed to negate any vitamin and mineral shortfalls in forage and straights like copra meal and provide a fully balanced diet.

Horses in Medium Work

Horses in medium work typically do regular schooling for about an hour daily and compete in affiliated competitions. Two day eventing, Polo ponies, endurance horses and young racehorses undergoing breaking and training would fall into this category with a daily energy requirement of around 98 MJ for an average 500kg horse.   

Feeds for these horses usually provide 10-12MJ/kg DE, which can be achieved through digestible fibre sources like CoolStance Copra, which also provides oil and good levels of protein to support muscle repair and integrity when working more regularly. Ideally for a horse in medium work, CoolStance Copra can be fed at around 1 -2kg per day to help provide the right energy levels alongside daily forage.

Increased workload also raises the need for antioxidants like vitamin E and selenium, so providing these in the form of a high specification supplement like VitaStance Mineral Mix is ideal for optimal performance.  Regular training also boosts sweat production, necessitating an increased need for key electrolytes like sodium, potassium and chloride which can also be provided through VitaStance Mineral Mix to help replenish lost electrolytes and support optimal hydration.

Horses in Hard Work

Most leisure horses in the UK do not fit into this category, which generally includes horses who are training and competing at peak physical capacity. Racehorses on an active racing schedule, polo ponies or horses competing at three-day event level fit into this classification. Horses in hard work, weighing an average 500kgs, need around 113 MJ of energy per day to meet requirements but depending on the activity this can be as high as 144MJ per day. Ideally, feeds for these horses need to supply around 12MJ/kg DE or more.

Again, sources of highly digestible fibre and oil (which typically provides 2.5 times more energy than starch from cereals) like CoolStance Copra can help support the increased energy demands of hard working horses and provide stamina for sustained energy efforts like a cross country course in 3-day eventing.

Feeding high levels of cereals can increase the risk of digestive issues like gastric ulcers and colic. So, for horses in hard work, a high-fibre and oil based feed such as CoolStance Copra – which can be fed at 2 to 3 kgs per day, is a much safer way of meeting their increased nutritional needs, alongside a fully balanced vitamin and mineral supplement like VitaStance Mineral Mix to provide targeted nutrition for optimal performance.

If you have any questions about creating the best diet and nutrition for your horse or pony, please contact 01488 73322 or info@boomerangnutrition.co.uk.