Show and Competition Preparation - Nutritional Approach for Peak Performance

Diet

A well balanced diet is the foundation for a horse’s overall health and performance. From a nutritional standpoint, the key to maximizing performance is curtailing a feeding program that includes a balanced diet that is custom designed to meet the needs of each individual horse. From breed to breed, discipline to discipline and horse to horse these diets can look drastically different; so it important to understand how to customize balanced diets.

Balanced Diet

With all the different feeds and supplements on the market it can be tempting to base your feeding program around a specific feed or brand that bodes well to you. However, horses were designed to thrive on forage. Consequently, a balanced diet starts with forage first. The first step in balancing a diet is having the hay tested. The results of the hay test will indicate what nutrients the hay is providing and what nutrients it lacks. Feed and supplements can then be plugged in to fill the nutritional gaps and compensate for deficiencies. If you would like further assistance in balancing your horse’s diet, contact the equine specialists at The Mill.

Low NSC

While sugars and starches do provide calories and energy, most horses benefit from a low sugar/starch diet. Because their digestive tracts were designed to function on forage, providing a diet with high non-structural carbohydrates (NSC’s) can cause adverse effects such as anxious/nervous behavior, ulcers, digestive upset, colic and laminitis. Diets that are high in fiber with low NSC’s tend to work best with their system.  If additional calories or energy are needed, a fat supplement can suffice.

Amino Acid Profile

Amino acids are the building blocks of protein; and protein is necessary for muscle repair, growth and recovery. While all horses have daily amino acid requirements, a high-quality amino acid package is of the utmost importance for horses that are working and competing.  Most performance feeds provide a built-in amino acid package. When fed according to the specific feeding instructions on the bag or feed tag, these built-in amino acid packages are designed to satisfy the horse’s daily requirements.

A few other options to bulk up an amino acid package are diet balancers and other highly concentrated amino acid supplements. A diet balancer is a supplement that can be fed alone with forage or as a top-dress to any feeding program. It boasts a low feeding rate, typically 1-3lbs/day, and can boost the horse’s amino acid package. Diet balancers are great options for horses needing additional amino acid support, above and beyond what’s being provided from their current feed and forage, without the added sugars and starches that typically come along with increasing their feed. They are also beneficial to add to an all-forage diet to ensure the daily requirements of vitamins, minerals and amino acids are met.

There are higher concentrated amino acid supplements on the market, as well. These products have even lower feeding rates than diet balancers, averaging around 4-12oz/day.  While these highly concentrated additives tend to be pricey, they can expedite results. For growing horses under a heavy workload or horses needing to improve their topline quickly, these highly concentrated supplements are extremely helpful.

Fat

Similar to how diet balancers add vitamins, minerals and amino acids to a diet without additional sugars and starches; fat supplements provide additional calories and energy without excessive sugars and starches. Fat supplements are commonly used to help horses increase their weight/rib coverage, but are also beneficial for numerous other applications, such as:

• Aid in maintaining hard keepers
• Increasing caloric intake when feeding more is not an option
• Improving body condition when excessive weight gain is not needed
• Boosting energy for performance and/or to aid in withstanding cold climates
• Providing a ‘non-heating’ or ‘cool’ source of energy
• Encouraging bloom and shine for a finishing touch appearance

While adding a fat supplement to a diet has many advantages, it is important to note that horse digestive systems were not designed to consume large amounts of fat. Consequently, care must be taken to not overdue fat amounts in the diet. Too much fat can cause loose stool/diarrhea and back horses out of the feed tub, effectively defeating the purpose of increasing caloric intake.

Quality Forage

Forage is the foundation of all equine diets; therefore, care must be taken in selecting both the right type and quality of hay. While appearance, texture and smell can all be used as indicators of a hay’s likability; only hay testing can provide concrete results. These results will give you the foundational information you must have to balance the rest of your horse’s diet.  Details such as…

• Digestible Energy
• ADF/NDF (essentially the consumability and digestibility of the hay)
• Micro and Macro nutrients present in the forage
• Non-Structural Carbohydrate (NSC) levels – especially valuable information when managing overweight, metabolic or metabolic-prone horses and ponies

Here in the Mid-Atlantic region, the most common hay types that we have available to us are Timothy Grass Hay, Orchard Grass Hay and Alfalfa.  While the following details are generalities and the only way to know the true nutritional details of hay is to have it tested; there are ways to customize your forage to cater to the individual needs of your horses.

• Timothy Grass Hay – Tends to have moderate to high levels of NSCs and is typically more palatable than Orchard Grass Hay. Usually offers low to moderate calorie content. 
• Orchard Grass Hay – Tends to have highest levels of NSCs.  Also, typically offers higher protein and higher calorie content than Timothy.
• Alfalfa Legume Hay – Typically more calorically dense than grass hays but tends to have lower levels of NSC’s.  Can be beneficial for:
  • Underweight
  • Growing
  • Pregnant/Lactating
  • Performance
  • Ulcers
  • Some Metabolic Issues

Hydration

Hydration, hydration, hydration!  Keeping your horse drinking is of vital importance and can prove difficult during stressful times of training, inclement weather, traveling and showing/competing.  Here are some tips to keep your horse hydrated:

• Keep fresh, clean water available at all times
• Provide more than one water source option
• Make salt and mineral free-choice accessible
  • Loose salt and mineral
  • Bricks or Blocks
  • Enrichment Salt/Mineral Lick Toys
• Add electrolytes to meals – Be sure electrolyte products are salt/potassium based without excess sugars
• Give oral electrolyte paste at strategic times such as post hauling or post exhaustive training/competition for quicker rehydration.  **Only give when horse will have access to free choice water**
• Soak:
  • beet pulp-based feed prior to feeding
  • forage alternatives such as beet pulp, hay cubes/pellets

Diet Consistency When Traveling

Sudden changes in feed and/or forage can throw a horse off its game. Even if the guaranteed analyses of a new feed are similar to that of the horse’s regular feed - the smell, texture and taste differences can be a turn off causing the horse to reduce their consumption. The same can be true with forage. Drastic feed changes can also cause digestive upset leading to colic and laminitis - if there’s a spike in the NSC levels.  For continuity in the feeding program:

• Plan space to haul the horse’s normal feed and hay along with you as you travel
• For long trips, when hauling all the feed and hay you will need for the full duration of the time away from home is not realistic, take enough regular feed and forage with you to do a slow transition to the new feed/forage once you arrive at new/temporary location. If possible, don’t start transitioning to new feed/forage until after a few days at new location to minimize stress as horse is adjusting to new surroundings.
• If traveling long distances, keep in mind that the same feed made by national brands may have slight regional differences.

Combating Stress

Training, traveling, competing and less than ideal climates can put a lot of pressure on horses. Going the extra mile to help reduce stress can pay off in big ways to reduce the incidence of ulcers, colic and behavioral issues. Some helpful tricks of the trade:

·   Daily use of digestive aids and pre/probiotics

·   Continuity of feeding program

·   Keeping adequate gut-fill, periods no longer than 3 hours without forage consumption, utilization of slow feed hay nets

·   Break daily meal rations up into many small meals

·   Feed forage prior to grain meals

·   Offer a handful or small flake of alfalfa to horses prior to training or competing (the calcium in alfalfa acts as an additional buffer from stomach acids.  Additionally, the hay creates a sort of basket in the stomach that reduces the sloshing around of gastric juices that can disrupt the lining creating or irritating ulcers)

·   Maintaining hydration

·   Arrive to new location early to allow the horse time to settle in before expecting top performance

·   Make movement and exercise a high priority, more than just training and competing to keep gut moving and lactic acid from building:

§ Turn out for freedom in pasture, paddock or round-pen when available

§ Hand walk and graze

§ Ride at a walk/trot

·   Provide enrichment toys to engage the mind and avoid boredom

§ Jolly Ball

§ Lick Treats on a rope

§ Treat Puzzles

§ Forage Balls