Letting Horses Down Post-Competition

As the competition season comes to a close, attention should be paid to the diet that your equine athlete is going to be maintained on for the winter spell.  Decisions will need to be made around the types of feed you use depending on the horses’ requirements.  Is the horse a good keeper that will maintain well over the winter or did it lighten up over the season and now needs to gain back weight?  Was there an injury at some stage and recovery and rehabilitation are part of the equation? Does your horse require a couple of weeks light work post competition to transition into a spell?

The fibre portion of the diet should be the first area of focus and be the basis of the diet.  Good pasture would be preferable and the most economical feed, if you have it.  Declining quality in pasture over the winter will need to be balanced by quality hay/baleage or other forage sources especially in areas of New Zealand that have been hit by significant weather events and where pasture may not be available and hay and baleage supply has been decimated.  

If you are running short of pasture and hay is not plentiful – there are other options to help fulfill the horse’s requirement for at least 65-80% of fibre in the diet in a turn out period.  There are plenty of bagged options available for ensiled fibre which can be feed up to 8kg in the diet if required and a range of chaffs.  Hygain® Micrbeet®  is a super fibre product containing beet pulp and another great option, Hygain® Fibressential® which contains a blend of lupin hulls, beet and soya hulls in a convenient nugget which can be fed dry or soaked also work well. Hygain® Zero®can also be ideal with 35% fibre to meet nutrient requirements.

The horse’s requirements for hard feed also need to be assessed for this period.  If you have a good doer, a simple balancer product for grass and hay might be all that’s required.  Hygain have two options – Sporthorse® pellets with a feeding range up to 200g or Balanced® which can be fed up to 1kg a day.  Both products contain minerals, vitamins, amino acids and prebiotics to keep horses healthy and help the body recover from the competition season.  Balanced® also has a very quality protein level to help ensure the fibre in the diet can be properly utilised as well.

Some horses will require rebuilding or are naturally leaner over the winter period.  A complete feed may be suitable in this situation so that 2kg or more may be fed to fill the nutritional gap. Traditionally people tend to lean toward breeding feeds in this circumstance as they tend to be very good at putting on weight for horses without heating them up.  Extruded breeding feeds like Hygain® Tru Breed® work really well as they are over 90% bio-available so every bit of the feed is utilised and if required the addition of Tru Gain® a 20% fat rice bran pellet can really help build and maintain weight.

Your horses and ponies have worked really hard for you over the season and a lot more thought other than pulling shoes and covers off and chucking them in the back paddock for the winter should be put into making sure they come into the following season in good form and ready to perform at their best.  This especially applies to those older horses that might be better off with a little bit of light work to keep the muscles moving and the joints from stiffening up. What you feed and do in the off season can make a huge difference to your results when you next hit the competition arena.