Do we over analyse horses now

[Patterdale]

The buck stops with the owner though - it is an owner's responsibility to educate themselves about basic horse health, and to seek veterinary advice about the horse's weight if they have concerns, not listen to a company feed rep.

Yes but they think that they ARE educating themselves because they think these people are actual nutritionists.

 

[SantaVera]

yes we do, fulled by spending hours on the internet reading every story about every ailment or fitness regime or the next best magical supplement.

 

[SantaVera]

Playing Devils Advocate here - aren’t horses living a lot longer and in work for longer nowadays though? Back when I started riding 15 was pretty ancient for a horse. All I see now are ads that have horses for sale that no one would bought years ago as their working life would be practically over.

yes but we now have passports and microchips i do wonder how many quiet childrens ponies age 10 of yesteryear were actually 20 . I dont think they are living longer i think knocking years off their real age isnt happening

 

[Patterdale]

She condition scores them, explains how owners can monitor them more effectively, and gives them nutrition advice to help them lose weight.

But how often is this advice ‘stop feeding it?’
Because that’s what fat horses need. Fat horses shouldn’t be given hard feed in any form, how many feed reps are going to subscribe to that?

 

[Ample Prosecco]

Regularly!! She asks what they are feeding now and tells them dramatically reduce or stop. And she gives a talk too wich says forageis very often enough - and if your horse is overweight it needs to be weighed out. Yes she is from Saracens but she does not push extra feed that is not needed.

 

[ihatework]

Yes but they think that they ARE educating themselves because they think these people are actual nutritionists.

That’s the scary thing.

These feed reps are generally (note not always) equine college graduates and usually still fairly young / keen. They happily get sucked into the commercial world and are more than happy to spout out marketing spiel and sound like experts. Scratch the surface and their depth of knowledge is not there. But they generally believe what they say and have targets to meet.

I say that coming from a pharmaceutical background where there are commonalities!

 

[ycbm]

Yes but also no. Horses live a lot longer now than they did 40 years ago. When i first owned a horse it was impossible to insure and quite difficult to sell a horse (not a pony) over 15 because that was considered an old horse .
.

 

[paddi22]

theres a couple of old school shows here that still have the veteran horse class at age 12 and over!

 

[hock]

In some ways it's hard to separate the two.

45 yrs ago if I wanted to buy forage I literally went to the next door farmer and bought whatever hay he had in his barn, quite often sifting through to get the best of the bales, BTW it was 50 pence a bale. Feed, ponies didn't get feed or if they did it was down to feed store and choice of either oats, barley rings, sugar beet, bran or nuts.
Now hardly any hay is made around us let alone any small bales. So I buy haylage, I would anyway having an asthma pony, if I'm very lucky I find a local farmer who does small bales, otherwise I go to a feed store. And have a huge choice all telling theirs is suitable/the best/will do this that and the other and that is just forage. Go to buy feed and you are faced with racks and racks of different types most aimed at leisure horses (which generally don't need it!) and it to be fed in huge quantities. And you're told if you're not feeding in huge quantities you need to feed a balancer of which there are shelves of.

So people are faced with all this, research (faff and over analyse?) They generally research on Internet where peoples credentials, motives and knowledge are unknowns and so on it goes. As a child I needed to know something, I went to my Pony Club manual, or Keeping a Horse at Grass book and there was the answer, black and white telling me what to do. Now go on the Internet and either look up or ask a question and you will get 100 different answers, many geared to parting you from your money.

Supposedly faffing and over analysing by me led to my horse being diagnosed with asthma at an early stage, being managed and treated accordingly and hopefully this has led to no further damage being done to his lungs, 9 yrs on he is still fit and able to be in full work. I remember very well the "broken winded" horses of old. But I had seen and felt with another horse the same symptoms so where do you put the line between over analysing and knowledge and experience that things aren't right?

There is so much more choice of everything these days, some of which is a good thing some not which again leads to over analysing. But there is a lack of places to gain your own knowledge and experience, no more spending every weekend and school holiday working in the local yard gaining this and learning from horsemen.

People "faff and over analyse" whilst trying to do their best and cause problems whilst at other times "faffing and over analysing " can often discover a problem that can be fixed or prevented

I think over feeding, lack of suitable exercise, lack of knowledge and many livery yard management systems cause most avoidable problems rather than it being faffing and over analysing causing these problems.

Eta, whilst I was typing this TFF has summed it up much more concisely.!

I think we might be confusing over analysing with marketing.

 

[santas_spotty_pony]

Definitely. In the last few years, I certainly have decided to go more simple and back to basics this past couple of years. My old boy gets a powder balancer in his feed, the other two do not. They all have happy hoof and hay and are all doing really well on it. My physio paid loads of compliments when she came out the other week about their topline and muscle being fantastic. I only work them theee times per week maximum at the moment and she asked what I was feeding I think fully expecting me to say ‘topline conditioning cubes’ or similar but no - proper work (quality over quantity) and a simple diet of complete fibre is the way forward I believe.

 

[Goldenstar]

Yes but also no. Horses live a lot longer now than they did 40 years ago. When i first owned a horse it was impossible to insure and quite difficult to sell a horse (not a pony) over 15 because that was considered an old horse .
.

Yes you are right it was thing when I started out working that hunters where sold at ten because the market for them after that was limited and if they where in serious hunting jobs they needed to find and get settled in lighter work load in a less strenuous job because at 15 many where finished but now we have more knowledge and more at our disposal to diagnose and keep injuries to a minimum.

Fat is imo the mayor cause of issues in leisure horses.
I found some pictures look at pictures of my ponies in mums house when I clearing omg you don’t see ponies at that weight outside of serious competition situations very often now .
We are habituated to looking at fat horses .
I live in a one woman battle against my ID’s desire to be overweight and then lame .
I can’t believe how little they go on .
Both of them are threes atm but at the top end I need them slimmer .
They have lived out until the second week in January and got two kilos of a Timothy / fescue haylege a day one hunted on that and only need a bit more haylege at Christmas they had some chop and some balancer in the morning .
The food is such good quality now they need less .
Hunters on the yard I was on when young where working hard they often left the yard at quarter to ten to hack to the meet and they came back in the dark some did that five days a fortnight
They where getting weighed hay four times a day and hard food food four times day by March they where lean they got properly roughed off over a month and then where ridden up to a moor where the farrier met us and removed their shoes they then where let go and off they went to horses on moor in a little herd .
That’s hard believe now .
It was really fun I loved it .

You do see fat horses eventing sadly some where mine in the past as I have knack for picking horses that do well .
BD also has it share porky athletes .
RF is right there big yards full of horses being fed but doing nothing. I have friend who calls them concentration camps for horses except they feeding them to death .

 

[teapot]

Increased anaylsis and decreased education, knowledge and common sense - bad combination imho

 

[GoldenWillow]

I think we might be confusing over analysing with marketing.

I'm probably not explaining what I mean clearly. It's very hard to over analyse what to feed when there was a choice of one bag of nuts, very easy to get drawn into a worm hole of over analysing when faced with a huge choice.

 

[silv]

Case in point - a few years ago I had a yearling who developed very slight lameness due to a developmental issue. I did get the vet, whose answer was surgery. I disagreed and favoured turnout and watching. The vet was quite….persuasive let’s say. Terms like ‘well it’s up to you, but I suppose it depends if you want this horse to ever have a meaningful ridden career’ etc.

I was strong enough in my convictions to just turn the horse away however, and the problem resolved within a few months and the problem never bothered the horse again. Had I gone down the surgical route, as most owners would have I believe, I would have subjected a YEARLING to surgery and a long period of box rest and rehab, with all the physical and mental issues this would bring.

I’m lucky that I rent my own land, but if I’d been on a livery yard I think there would have been a lot of pressure from novice liveries/YO to operate, rather than watch the horse be unlevel for a bit in the field.

I’ll share my views on a couple of the common horse ailments, in case anyone is interested.

LAMINITIS
They’re all too fat. Yes I know there are cases in thin horses, but let’s be honest, most of these metabolic issues are caused by fat horses. And ALL fat horses are caused by owners, we need to be honest about this. They need tons more exercise (no, groundwork and walking in hand doesn’t count) and tons less food. SO many owners revolve their lives around having their laminitic ponies on tiny bare paddocks, weighing out and soaking 400 nets a day so that Buttons doesn’t go 10 minutes without ‘forage’ because they’ve read that ‘horses must never be without forage’ or they’ll get ulcers, and feeding ‘balancers’ (don’t get me started).
So the result is that Buttons stands still all day eating, whilst the owner is mystified as to why it’s still fat. So they try ‘exercise’ which is usually the aforementioned groundwork or walking in hand. Lunging is suggested, but no, the owner has read that lunging is hard on their joints.
So it is, but not as hard on their joints as 200kg extra weight.
If they get a few days serious starving, painkillers and cold water then they usually get sounder quickly and you can start reversing the damage ie getting the weight off.

ABSCESSES
Just get the foot dug out (by a FARRIER!), wash out the hole and turn it out. Wash out the hole twice a day.
DO NOT box rest it in a stable for it to stand in poo, get a recurrent abscess, worry itself into ulcers, then injure itself when it’s finally turned back out.
DO NOT faff on endlessly with fancy poultice boots which rub the pastern. Do not get the vet for a simple abscess. Just get the hole dug then bye-bye to the field and cancel whatever you had on that week with them.

ULCERS
Ulcers are a tricky one because so much of it depends on experience. The experience to see why a horse is complaining, or to know who to ask if you can’t see it yourself. I think it’s safe to say that pretty much all ulcers are caused by management, and for that you need an experienced eye.
I do not believe in scoping horses personally, I think it’s barbaric tbh and if it didn’t have ulcers before, starving and scoping could cause them in my view. Omeprazole is a safe drug. If your horse has signs of ulcers, give it a course and see if they improve. If they do, great. It was ulcers. Give another few weeks. But have a serious look at your management.

SADDLE FITTING
Contentious issue, sorry, but horses are happy in a saddle padded up to fit them. They don’t need a £3k saddle made to measure which is then adjusted every 4 weeks meaning the horse hardly gets ridden. There are a wide variety of off the peg saddles with different trees and panels, get vaguely the right one and pad it up. How do you think all professional yards run!?
But again, we’re back to experience needed for this.

FEEDING
Horse fat? IT DOESN’T NEED FEED. No, not even a balancer. Promise.

Horse not fat? In medium to hard work (please note, medium work is not hacking 4 times a week)? Give it some feed. For slow horses, give a heating feed. For fast horses, give a non heating feed. Any will do really, they’re all much of a muchness.
However, I prefer barley for fast horses and oats for slow horses, with sugar beet. Maybe linseed if you want them shinier.

But always appropriate forage, whilst remembering that fat horses do not actually need access to food 24/7 or they will remain fat forever, plus it costs lots.

TURNOUT
All horses should be turned out with friends, there are no exceptions. If you have a horse who can’t be turned out due to psychological issues, that’s not the horse’s fault and doesn’t disprove this idea.

I could rant on all day honestly.

Great post! could have written this myself.

 

[blitznbobs]

In the good old days we had

Saddles that didn’t fit (‘‘twas common to see white patches by horses withers… I’ve not seen that in years)
Waking horses in streams for laminitiis
Horses being ridden through being cold backed and bucking escapades
Same saddle used on all the horses
People who ‘knew’ so much that they wouldn’t look at anything new.

Dr green
Turning away
Actually making horses work for their keep

Now we have

Much better science but despite
Much poorer average knowledge per owner
People with no knowledge making up their own facts
Horses that do not work enough for their health
Over use of rugs

But better saddle fitting
Better feeds
Better forage
Better understanding that ‘it might just be pain’

Is it better now or worse…?? I swing both ways but either way what they usually suffer from is ignorant owners

 

[Patterdale]

In the good old days we had

Saddles that didn’t fit (‘‘twas common to see white patches by horses withers… I’ve not seen that in years)
Waking horses in streams for laminitiis…….

We bought a good pony 2 years ago who arrived fat and cresty and had a bout of laminitis soon after. I used to stand him in a stream for hours, he’d hobble in then walk freely out, worked wonders.

He’s now a bit too slim and has lost the crest, hasn’t had any more bouts, and is living out on 5 acres of grass. I’ve no doubt that in many homes he’d have never touched grass again and be living a miserable life of grass-free tracks, muzzles and soaked hay.

I prefer the stream method of giving relief to some of the more modern methods tbh!

Your last sentence is spot on though.

We all keep learning forever, the problem now is that it’s hard for new owners to know who/where they should be learning from.

 

[Boulty]

I don’t think there’s a simple answer to this.

I think that the standards of soundness we aim for / find acceptable in an in work horse are on the whole higher than they were. We have more treatment options and more options for investigation so we are better at finding problems. The tricky part can be working out which problems are actually clinically relevant.

There’s a lot more recognition now of the sentience of animals and their ability to feel things like pain and distress which should influence training and management

A lot of low level lameness does respond well to some time turned away and a long, slow rehab rather than trying for a quick fix (& there probably is more pressure if you’re insured to get a diagnosis and try various treatments quickly before the clock runs out when a few months turned away and slow return to work may very well have done the job)

Last random thought is that once you’ve owned a horse who genuinely does need micromanaging for whatever reason (usually health related) it’s a hard habit to break/ to turn off that level of hyper awareness when it comes to the next more “normal” horse

 

[shanti]

When my dad, who is an old rodeo rider, came to visit me recently he was quite amused with my horse management and seriously told me that am at risk of killing them with kindness, plus, the added work and cost that I was making for myself. He even commented on how stressed I seemed every time one of the horses so much as even farted. He basically told me to stop faffing around and let them be damn horses. I thought I was doing pretty well in that regard, obviously not

My non-horsey husband once said ''I think all you horse people do so much unnecessary stuff because it makes YOU feel better'' There's some truth in that I think.

 

[DabDab]

No I don't think so. I think that there is probably more poor/confused horse management than there was years ago, but I don't think the cause is 'over-analysis'.

On a forum like this the worriers will always be the most visible, because they are the ones that post, whereas the person who ignores a horse that has something wrong with it won't be posting on here about it.

Supplements and whether or not to get the vet for this or that is an interesting one for people to pick up on, because as long as I have been involved with horses there have been hookey cures/remedies for this that or the other knocking about. Nobody wants to pay for a vet when you can fix it yourself so people will try all sorts. But because of the Internet the new latest greatest supplement or remedy trend is spread through the equestrian community faster and can be monitised more easily. When I was a kid we used to put garlic and cod liver oil in horses' feed...cant imagine doing that now!

 

[Goldenstar]

On pain the thing is if you have a horse in a good routine your observing it ,your working it ,and training it it’s pretty easy to know when things change .
If the horse is standing in stable most days the week with a couple of hours turnout in a tiny mud filled paddock seeing people everyday for very little time it’s not so easy.

It’s extremely sad as an example that horses with arthritis can get to the stage where they are 5/10 lame on flexion when they first see the vet , when you can usually catch them at 1/10 if you are on the ball because early invention gets the best outcome in managing things like that .

It all comes to fat in leisure horses that’s the biggest thing that needs to change .

 

[Goldenstar]

No I don't think so. I think that there is probably more poor/confused horse management than there was years ago, but I don't think the cause is 'over-analysis'.

On a forum like this the worriers will always be the most visible, because they are the ones that post, whereas the person who ignores a horse that has something wrong with it won't be posting on here about it.

Supplements and whether or not to get the vet for this or that is an interesting one for people to pick up on, because as long as I have been involved with horses there have been hookey cures/remedies for this that or the other knocking about. Nobody wants to pay for a vet when you can fix it yourself so people will try all sorts. But because of the Internet the new latest greatest supplement or remedy trend is spread through the equestrian community faster and can be monitised more easily. When I was a kid we used to put garlic and cod liver oil in horses' feed...cant imagine doing that now!

Yeh there’s not enough cod left !
When to call the vet, you are right people need to learn that but calling the vet is not enough , you can’t learn excellent stable / grass management from a vet they are not trained in that , you can’t learn to train a horse from a vet they are not trained in that .
There’s a lot to learn in horses to do it well or even adequately.

 

[ycbm]

It all comes to fat in leisure horses that’s the biggest thing that needs to change .

Sadly the damage was often done by people who are scared of seeing ribs on yearlings and two year olds.
.

 

[Goldenstar]

Sadly the damage was often done by people who are scared of seeing ribs on yearlings and two year olds.
.

That’s true the truth is youngsters often look all bones and angles when growing and we can’t look at that today with the same eyes that we did forty years ago.

 

[LEC]

I was fascinated to see recently that Ros Canter feeds her horses primarily on grass nuts, and keeps most of them out 20+hours a day on grass - so nothing much other than grass in various formats

I got an independent nutritionist out who said all you need is a good source of protein (usually alfalfa nuts) majority fibre (hay/grass), salt and you are away. If you under feed amounts and your hard feed is not fortified then you need vits and mins.

 

[ycbm]

That’s true the truth is youngsters often look all bones and angles when growing and we can’t look at that today with the same eyes that we did forty years ago.

There seems to have been an absolute rocket in the diagnosis of arthritis at around 6 years old, unrelated to injuries that might have caused it. I do wonder how much of that is due to feeding stud mix or cow grazing to yearlings and two year olds to stop them looking as ribby as they would on a forage only diet.
.

 

[Goldenstar]

There seems to have been an absolute rocket in the diagnosis of arthritis at around 6 years old, unrelated to injuries that might have caused it. I do wonder how much of that is due to feeding stud mix or cow grazing to yearlings and two year olds to stop them looking as ribby as they would on a forage only diet.
.

Fat is part of it ,but other parts are lack of movement when young and the extremely flexible joints that are being bred in to riding horses and that joint movement is more valued than long term soundness when breeding horses.

 

[LEC]

At a RC camp the other day someone took a just backed young horse . Their reasoning was that the horse had to fit round their busy life and kids and this was a good way for it to get experience. Except the poor horse was completely overwhelmed and was on the edge of being an accident. This is just one example of people being absolutely clueless. What happens is people are novice and buy horse and then have no clue how to look after it. They also have no interest in learning how to look after it, what good feet look like, exercising it enough, having good balance in ridding which will keep it sounder longer, being fit to ride. The list is endless. Horses are lifelong learning and even after 40 years, BHS qualifications etc I still find myself obsessed with wanting to learn more.

I don’t think people over analyse, I think they have failed to learn fundamental basics and fail to educate themselves and then fail to be able to differentiate on good and bad advice.

 

[LEC]

There seems to have been an absolute rocket in the diagnosis of arthritis at around 6 years old, unrelated to injuries that might have caused it. I do wonder how much of that is due to feeding stud mix or cow grazing to yearlings and two year olds to stop them looking as ribby as they would on a forage only diet.
.

There is a big issue around movement as well. No hills, smaller paddocks, not out in herds or on hills or on too rich grazing. Plus they are often now barned over winter rather than moving around to keep warm in all weathers and naturally losing a bit of weight which helps the bodies insulin levels.

 

[LadyGascoyne]

My biggest bugbear is lack of consistency. It seems that everyone wants instant results and chops and changes management based on every article they read.

It must be so exhausting for owners who genuinely don’t seem to be pulled in every direction by ever conflicting piece of advice they get.

I think the reality is that horses are prey animals and they are not designed to last forever, and be immune to all ills.

Life can be uncomfortable and it is no bad thing that all creatures experience some discomfort in their lives. Sometimes horses will get cold, will be sore, will be hungry, will be under the weather. Nothing we do is going to result in a perfect equilibrium where our horses float about on cloud 9 every minute of the day. Just like that’s an impossibility for us to strive for as humans.

If we focus on doing our best to ensure that the bigger picture is right, and reduce the obsessing about the minutia, I think everything sorts itself out in the round.

Bigger picture things, for me, is the balance in their life. Turnout / exercise and fitness/ physical comfort / nutrition. If I look at 12 months of their lives, am I happy that they have an overall high quality of life?

For me, I know mine have a weakness in exercise and fitness in the last 12 months - that’s on me, and my busy life - but all the others are high scoring. So in the next 12 months, I’d like to see an incremental improvement in exercise and fitness. That does not mean that my horses are going to be worked every day religiously and I’m going to crucify myself if I don’t, it just means that I’ll strive to make this year will be better than last.

The fact that my horse gets caught in the rain without a rug, looks a bit poor in winter, has a couple of days in the year where it’s feeling under the weather - these are not crises, they are part of life. If we focus on micromanaging every element of that, then the horse would be in and out like a yo-yo, rugged and unrugged several times a day, feed changed and whacked up in winter to come into spring grass looking too well, and poked, prodded, supplemented and drugged several times a year depending on the flavour of the ailment.

The knock-on harms from things require even more intensive management, and everyone ends up even more stressed - including the horse. Then everyone will get ulcers (probably including me!) and we’ll be shelling out a couple of thousand pounds for omeprazole which is extortionate and unpleasant.

Taking a step back and asking oneself if the overarching needs of an individual horse are really being met can sometimes be a hard question for some owners. Livery yards can seldom meet all the needs of every individual, and often rely on micromanagement to compensate for loss of that balance. A perceived lack of control of the bigger picture, I think, pushes a lot of owners to bury themselves in the detail.

The truth of the matter is though, that we do have the ability to change the overall picture, even if that takes enormous sacrifice from ourselves up to and including accepting that we can’t provide the right environment for a particular horse, and putting it down or selling it.

One of the things that I am brutal with myself on is questioning whether a feeling of “I don’t know what to do” is legitimate, or whether I actually do know what to do but I just don’t like the answer. 99% of the time it is the latter.

 

[Fieldlife]

I was fascinated to see recently that Ros Canter feeds her horses primarily on grass nuts, and keeps most of them out 20+hours a day on grass - so nothing much other than grass in various formats

And some form of balancer / source of vitamins and minerals?