Feed question for horse in work

[Cac0587]

I am 6ft tall

I have a 17.1, 1600lb Hanoverian mare who is in 4 heavy work days a week. She is turned out on 1st cutting orchard grass unlimited

we are in Virginia, and currently feeding 6 lbs of Pacemaker from CFC Cool and Fit, 2 lbs Pace maker balancer, and 4 lbs (dry when weighed) beet pulp soaked split into 2 meals.

She is starting to move up the levels, and I am noticing she is running out of steam 1/2 way through her 40-45 min workouts.

She was previously on Tribute Kalm Ultra, the quality of the feed declined over 6-8 months and I went to Triple Crown complete for a year, and the price sky rocketed, and i wasn’t seeing the value of the feed through my mare.

So i am throwing around the idea of Ultium or Gastric care ultium. She doesn’t have any issues with ulcers, she is a happy clam with work. I plan to add some alfalfa to her rations, as that has always benefited her.

anyone have any recommendations? I really like the beet pulp as i like feeding more forage vs grain. please no mention of senior feeds, theyre not enough “umph” even when given in way high amounts for THIS mare.

I wish I knew how to upload a photo

thanks!

[IPEsq]

I am personally not a fan of Ultium but there are several “performance” feeds out there. I can’t get Tribute here without paying a crazy amount to have it shipped, but they have a lot of options. TC’s Perform Gold and Complete are also good feeds. You could try switching to a full ration of something like that and drop the balancer.

I will say, though, that this sort of exercise intolerance was the first sign of my horse’s asthma. He’d start out great and then be exhausted after 20 min or so. Only later did he start coughing and being not so preppy at the beginning of the ride. Before we went into those diagnostics, I did test vitamin E and Se, ran CBC and chem panel. My guy is an easier keeper, so I didn’t want to just load him up on feed for energy because he’d more than likely not use all that energy and get fat.

My friend has an UL dressage horse with worse asthma plus a laryngeal defect, and it didn’t really turn into a problem until they started working at 4th. I know a lot of canter work and certain frames/postures and contact are more difficult for my guy in days he can’t breathe as well.

1600lbs is quite heavy for a full blooded Hanoverian (not draft mix) even a 17hh one.

[JB]

@Cac0587

I really like the beet pulp as i like feeding more forage vs grain.

2lb each meal is a pretty large volume when soaked, volume which takes time to eat, time away from eating something else. With free choice hay, I wouldn’t be concerned about adding more forage. If nothing else, I’d consider replacing the beet with alfalfa pellets. You can even toss her a flake or 2 of alfalfa hay

Have you tested for PSSM? Is her muscling good?

Is there a reason you’re feeding just 6lb of the Pacemaker and then adding 2lb of a balancer, rather than feeding 8-10lb of the Pacemaker?

Adding fat may be the boost in energy she needs, so is what I’d do.

[JB]

@IPEsq

1600lbs is quite heavy for a full blooded Hanoverian (not draft mix) even a 17hh one.

Maybe she’s longer-backed? My 17h WB was 1500lb when he was a little heavy, BCS 6 or so, but also pretty short-backed, wearing only a size 80. He was a wide guy, needing a 60" long girth, so he wasn’t just tall and lanky. But I would see a 84/86" blanket on a 17.1h horse being 1600lb

[lenapesadie]

@JB

But I would see a 84/86" blanket on a 17.1h horse being 1600lb

scurries off to re weight tape 17 hand Friesian cross that wears an 84” blanket as he’s been wormed as if he weighs only 1350 lbs

[Montanas_Girl]

1600 pounds doesn’t sound unreasonable to me. I’ve known 1500+ pound (scale weight, not estimated) TB types around that height.

I think one of the Ultium products is worth trying for your scenario. The Competition formula is 1,900 kilocalories per pound, and the Gastric Care formula is 1,700 kilocalories per pound, so I would probably try the Competition formula first in this case.

(Disclaimer: I work for a feed company that is affiliated with Purina.)

[IPEsq]

@JB

@IPEsq

1600lbs is quite heavy for a full blooded Hanoverian (not draft mix) even a 17hh one.

Maybe she’s longer-backed? My 17h WB was 1500lb when he was a little heavy, BCS 6 or so, but also pretty short-backed, wearing only a size 80. He was a wide guy, needing a 60" long girth, so he wasn’t just tall and lanky. But I would see a 84/86" blanket on a 17.1h horse being 1600lb

My Dinosaur sized Hanoverian (I quit measuring when he passed 17.1 without shoes at 6 and he kept growing for 2 more years) was quite long in the back and I think in the neighborhood of 1400lbs at full dino size. My chunkster of a Holsteiner is 16.2 but also fairly long (78-81) but much finer boned and is about 1300lbs, 1350 when he’s pushing the limits of acceptable “hunter fat” according to the cattle scale on the farm (weight tape says less).

In any event, my comment is to suggest that perhaps more calories are not the right option for fixing the exercise intolerance of horse is getting enough calories to maintain weight at 1600lbs.

[Scribbler]

I have never found the magic feed that adds energy without calories on an easy keeper. Of course check all the nutrient levels.

[IPEsq]

@Scribbler

I have never found the magic feed that adds energy without calories on an easy keeper. Of course check all the nutrient levels.

Me neither. My porkchop would love to know what feed that is too! Actually, I lie, he is pretty lazy by nature, but he does love all the food.

[goodhors]

Off on a tangent here, but does horse get any fitness work beyond the 4 heavy days of work?

We need our Combined Driving Horses extremely fit to compete, doing Dressage, cross Country distances, then come back for the third section, Cones, done at speed with lots of bending, collection and extensions. Just continuing to practice in the arena is not going to have them fit enough for the distances or able to recover well in the other two sections oF competition. They have to breathe deeply, heart rate increases and recovers, limbs really fit for the stresses we ask of them.

I have to say if we fed out 17H, 1500 pound horses like the OP, they would be out of control wild!! They are fit, athletic, not fat. They don’t ever quit on us, have plenty of go without being out of control. Getting them fit requires mileage at walk, trot, canter, hand gallop to build their wind.

Doing only Dressage practices in your arena is not building her fitness levels. She needs to be “overfit” with mileage, not only doing collected work, to have enough energy to perform without “running out of gas” in competition. I really don’t think it is a feed issue. Many riders these days don’t condition horses, don’t go out of the rider’s comfort zone with distance work at speed. That leaves horses less prepared for competition stresses.

Also get a Selenium test done on her. Working and sweating will use up her Selenium which she needs for keeping her muscles working smoothly and reproductive system in good order. Yes you may be supplementing her Selenium, but she could be using it up faster than it is replaced. Without a test, you won’t know.

We now test our horses to ensure they have enough Selenium to perform well. We had problems with Selenium shortages before we started testing for it regularly. We WERE supplementing Selenium, but not doing it properly, they didn’t have enough going into them. We had to change how we supplemented, quantities fed to get better results in competition. Learned our lesson!

[WNT]

Does she have any predilection to metabolic issues? You may want to consider her total NSC intake (feed and hay), as while it isn’t something you want to overdo, it does provide glucose needed for energy production. I have had experience with eventers and fox hunters that ran out of puff on a high fat/fiber based ration that benefitted from adding a pound or so of barley or oats as needed for higher energy expenditures. I don’t know if this would be too much for a dressage horse, though.

[scislandsprite]

Really good point! This is always so overlooked at a lot of barns that I’ve boarded or trained at. The horses are all well schooled but that’s pretty much all they do besides the occasional day with some cavaletti. It took so long for me to discover all the different kinds of conditioning and their benefits! Dr. Hilary M. Clayton wrote a book on conditioning and it talks about different techniques and ways to condition for each discipline.

Of course having the correct nutrition is so crucial so you’re definitely right to look at that as well!

[theresak]

When I got to 3rd with my 17.2 TB/WB I started doing fitness work on hills and in the fields. I’d do trot and canter sets - less than a traditional eventer would do but that’s where I got the interval times from.

I’d make sure you aren’t letting your horse get behind the leg, especially when you work on more challenging collected movements. The horse may be convincing you to work harder as she works harder in the collection, which may feel like she’s running out of gas.

Also, 4 days a week of dressage schooling isn’t heavy work to me, even at the upper levels, unless it’s more than an hour of riding. Working 5-6 days a week for an hour each ride is closer to heavy work in my opinion. But if the collection is really ramping up, you may be hitting the limit on her strength in a schooling ride and she may need a few days to recover with some lighter work. It took about a year for my horse to build the strength to maintain true collection for a whole 3rd level test.

[Scribbler]

If the horse is running out of steam after 45 minutes schooling, I would do 35 minutes of focused useful work and then go for a trot hack. If the horse is getting fatigue with 4 days of arena work per week I would cut it down to 3.

It’s either a low level pain thing or just physical and/or mental exhaustion.

Some horses thrive on an arena routine and some do not.

[sascha]

@IPEsq

1600lbs is quite heavy for a full blooded Hanoverian (not draft mix) even a 17hh one.

My dead on 16hh, fairly light-boned, but extremely well muscled Hanoverian with a sprinkling of TB and Holsteiner/KWPN was weighed when we went to get a higher education about equine asthma. She weighed 1300lbs. I was sure she’d be 1200lbs max. I’ve also taken a heavy-boned KWPN who measured 16.3 and he came in at 1500lbs as a young, not fully muscled horse. My 18hh heavy-boned, but very compact and all legs (comparatively light, tubular torso) weighed 1775lbs. I can’t even imagine what he would have weighed had he had a deep and long body :o There are more, but I can’t remember any of their exact weights right at the moment.

By no means is 1600lbs out of question for a 17hh warmblood. It’s not just a height thing. Build plays a large part, as does how well developed they are - weight lifter (like many horses that have been properly developed and have the muscle mass that true collection requires) or not so heavily muscled as younger horses are. Age plays a part as well. I don’t expect my mare to stay at 1300lbs if she lives old enough to get old and retire. She’ll likely drop 2-300lbs and still be healthy if devoid of the beefcake muscling she has now. Now being a time when she is likely as heavily muscled as she will ever be.

[horseshorseshorseshorses]

To add to the height to weight comparison, I had a 16.1 hh heavier boned TB with an average length back that got weighed out at 1350 lbs when I donated him to the local vet school. He wasn’t fit in the slightest and if I remember correctly may have been a bit underweight honestly. I’m guessing when he was in fit was 1400-1450 lbs.

[Red_Barn]

@IPEsq

. . . perhaps more calories are not the right option for fixing the exercise intolerance of horse is getting enough calories to maintain weight at 1600lbs.

I agree.

Lots of things can lead to exercise intolerance and lack of energy. In the normal life of a fancy, well cared-for horse, lack of calories wouldn’t be high on my list of possibilities. Simple lack of fitness would be much higher, and I’d look at the horse’s training routine before I’d add calories.

For example, is there enough aerobic work built into his routine - fast hacks, conditioning trot sets, hill and speed work? Is he being carefully legged up to handle new demands as they arise? Do you know how to monitor heart rate, warm-up and cool-down rates, and so on?

If it was me, I’d revisit all this, considering all the things that endurance riders do.

Condition Your Horse Like a Pro – The Horse

After that I might consider upping calories - but only as the horse gets fitter and actually needs them.

[S1969]

@Red_Barn

Lots of things can lead to exercise intolerance and lack of energy. In the normal life of a fancy, well cared-for horse, lack of calories wouldn’t be high on my list of possibilities. Simple lack of fitness would be much higher, and I’d look at the horse’s training routine before I’d add calories.

Agreed, and I say this as an endurance athlete, not as a rider. If you only ride the same type of 40-45 minute schooling workout, your horse is unlikely to get much fitter. You definitely will need to mix up the type of workout and also in some cases the duration of the workout. My coach used to remind us “you don’t get faster by running longer. You get faster by running harder.” But also - you can’t run longer by running harder. You have to actually build endurance by running longer. So if your goal is both - a more fit horse for longer than 40 minutes - you’ll need to train for both.

The article is really useful, but a good trainer should also be able to design the actual workouts/training sessions that increase endurance over time. Definitely would consider adding in some long, slow effort - a trail ride or something like that where heart rate is up but not above threshold for a longer period of time.

[Red_Barn]

@S1969

If you only ride the same type of 40-45 minute schooling workout, your horse is unlikely to get much fitter.

Yep.

And (at risk of getting the usual flak!) I’ll venture to say that dressage people tend to fall into this trap pretty frequently. They seem to know, in the abstract, that constant drilling is a bad idea, but, in reality, they often do it anyway. Eventers are much better, for obvious reasons, so perhaps the OP could learn a thing or two from eventing friends or barn mates?

Ingrid Klimke has always been one of my heroes, and her approach to all-around training is a big part of that:

Training%20the%20Ingrid%20Klimke%20Way-excerpt.pdf

[Cac0587]

yes, very long backed, I am trying to find a way to upload a photo. she is an 84" blanket