Feeding for "Sport Mode"--what to try next?

[irishchick]

I have a nice coming 6yo WB gelding I’d like to rev up. He’s not dull to the aids, but just doesn’t have anywhere near the energy level I want or would expect given what he’s eating. For example, I can hack him outside on a brisk windy day after a day off, pick up the trot, and if left to his own devices he’d just as soon drift back to the walk after about 30 yards. I’d rather have him frisking a bit or asking to canter in those circumstances.

I’m working to improve both fitness and training, of course, though I think both are far enough along at this point that neither one is so deficient as to entirely explain the lack of oomph. I’d appreciate suggestions of what more I can do for him diet-wise while I continue to build fitness.

Before I got him, he was on grass and alfalfa hay, and a total of 5.5 lbs oats and 5 lbs Cavalor Endurix per day.

He’s now getting, per day:

• 20 lbs grass hay
• 5 lbs alfalfa hay
• 4 lbs whole oats
• 3 lbs beet pulp
• 6 oz canola oil
• custom vitamin/mineral supplement to balance all of above
• KER Rite Trac
• BCAAs

For various boarding-related reasons, it’s easier and more reliable for me to manage his concentrate feeding myself. Thus, I currently give him all 4 lbs of oats with 1 lb beet midday after I ride (he LOVES beet, and won’t finish his oats without it bc he dislikes his vitamins), and leave the remaining 2lbs of beet in his stall for him to eat after being brought in for the night.

Some things I’m considering:

• Replace some or all of the oats with dry COB, for the higher GI of corn and barley?
• Add more alfalfa? (Would reduce beet and modify vit/min in this case to keep Ca:Ph in line)
• Stick with current diet but increase total quantity of oats and divide into two feedings? (Possible but disfavored, as it’s a bit of a production to have the barn staff do a feeding, so if I could get more energy just by changing what I’m feeding I’d rather do that).

[Scribbler]

Honestly I don’t think extra calories equals more energy in a horse who is in good weight. I wish it did. But in a laid back horse it just makes them fat.

I have a big Paint with a split personality. Some days she is dude string pony, and never warms up, can even be balky. Other days she warms up to Green Eventer Must Bomb Everywhere.

Things to consider. Feet, trim, balance. Saddle fit. Back and neck pains. Having a good warmup routine even if it takes 15 minutes for your first trot. Trail riding at the trot and canter. Test for PSSM. Really have a look at your VMS and try a megadose of Vitamin E. Give him more days off. It turns out my mare really needs a 5 day week.

[IPEsq]

Some horses are just quiet? (I buy ones like this on purpose!)

[S1969]

@irishchick

I’m working to improve both fitness and training, of course, though I think both are far enough along at this point that neither one is so deficient as to entirely explain the lack of oomph. I’d appreciate suggestions of what more I can do for him diet-wise while I continue to build fitness.

I’m interested to hear more of this.

I will be curious to hear if others think a change in diet will change much. Something to consider rather than diet change would be timing of what he eats before you ride.

Are you able to maintain gaits above the walk at all, or does it just require more leg? Or, you just wish he had more frisk/freshness than he does (because I agree that might be temperament).

But yes - consider PSSM as a possibility.

[wsmoak]

Anecdotally, when I moved back to the east coast and we were still getting things set up at home, I boarded my horse at the Fancy Eventing Barn. I didn’t pay enough attention to what they were feeding him.

It was Purina Ultium, and I had a fire breathing dragon on my hands. That stuff must be rocket fuel for horses.

[JB]

How long has he been like this?

Is his work good and quality, when you can get him to do it as you’d like?

or does he struggle with the work that his training and fitness would indicate he should be able to do?

What do his current rides consist of, and where did you start?

I don’t think this is a diet thing, at least not in terms of adding. He doesn’t need more calories.

If there’s any suspision of PSSM, I wouldn’t keep the oats, much less increase them. And for SURE don’t add more starch by adding barley or corn.

[irishchick]

Thanks everyone. We are attentive to shoeing/saddle fit/warmup/work outside the ring and he does get a hefty dose of natural Vitamin E daily (but a good reminder to retest to see if his deficiency has been remedied). As I look back, he’s more or less been like this since the “new home” excitement wore off. It’s just that I finally started wondering why he was still so mellow after changing and increasing his feed to a ration I would think would have him pretty frisky.

A couple of you have mentioned PSSM, and that or MFM is where my mind immediately went when I started wondering if there’s something amiss. He tested negative for Type 1 and has never shown any signs of tying up. Other than being more chill than I would expect given his diet in situations where I’d think he’d be fresh, he doesn’t really have other symptoms of myopathy: no cross-cantering, no bunny-hopping, no balking, not “cold backed,” does use his hind end and back well when yours truly gets it together, doesn’t seem to have actual exercise intolerance, and his muscle tone is normal per my bodyworker (who does work on PSSM horses so has a basis for comparison). My vet and bodyworker both think he’s just turned out to be a calm horse who’s gotten comfortable in his environment, and without a more symptomatic presentation I’m not inclined to put him through a biopsy.

If PSSM2/MFM could be a real possibility, I’d rather just change his diet if needed and see how he does–but what he gets now seems in line with current PSSM2/MFM guidelines as he gets enough beet with his oats to bring the NSC % of his bucket down to 35%.

Anyway, I talked to an eventer friend about fitness last night and she pointed out that being able to do 45 minutes of First Level work on level ground without puffing heavily or dripping sweat doesn’t necessarily mean he’s fit enough not to get a bit winded when asked to trot uphill. I’m starting to think he’s just not as fit as I thought, and since he’s a cool dude he doesn’t have nervous energy to compensate. So the plan is to start focusing on conditioning to really get him fit, and then reassess.

[JB]

@irishchick

Anyway, I talked to an eventer friend about fitness last night and she pointed out that being able to do 45 minutes of First Level work on level ground without puffing heavily or dripping sweat doesn’t necessarily mean he’s fit enough not to get a bit winded when asked to trot uphill. I’m starting to think he’s just not as fit as I thought, and since he’s a cool dude he doesn’t have nervous energy to compensate. So the plan is to start focusing on conditioning to really get him fit, and then reassess.

This sounds like an excellent place to go

I do think it’s worth testing Vit E, and also selenium just to cover those easily fixable bases

[Scribbler]

Uphill work certainly uses different muscles. My current horse has quite a flatland life and can get surprisingly winded on hilly trail rides.

[irishchick]

@JB

I do think it’s worth testing Vit E, and also selenium just to cover those easily fixable bases

Will do. And iron, too; my V/M for him is based on the assumption that he’s getting the FeedXL average amounts of iron from his hay (I don’t have a test of our hay as the barn gets it in small batches).

@Scribbler

Uphill work certainly uses different muscles. My current horse has quite a flatland life and can get surprisingly winded on hilly trail rides.

It seems like such a baby hill, and we do walk up it every day I ride. But it’s been too muddy to trot for a while.

His bodyworker had a good point, too: if he’s calm and cool by temperament, using diet to rev him up might just make him feel “overcaffeinated”–more alert, sure, but not a pleasant way to live.

[JB]

@irishchick

And iron, too; my V/M for him is based on the assumption that he’s getting the FeedXL average amounts of iron from his hay

Don’t bother with testing iron. Blood serum doesn’t tell you anywhere near the whole story, and unless he’s been sick or had major blood loss, he’s got plenty of iron in his blood. The only truly valuable test for iron is a ferritin test, which is $$$ and only done through Kansas State.

Iron deficiency in horses is basically not a thing, whereas copper and zinc deficiencies are a real thing

@irishchick

It seems like such a baby hill, and we do walk up it every day I ride.

Make sure he’s “on the bit” (I assume you know what that means, not just a head position ) and pushing up that hill, not on his forehand and pulling himself up. Same going down the hill, his hind end should be engaged and controlling the movement, not just on his forehand "running’ down the hill

I like how your bodyworker thinks

[Dbliron]

My guess would be lack of fitness. Getting young WB’s really fit the first time is hard work, it’s nothing like TB’s or Arabs, who gain cardiovascular fitness really fast. I think your eventing friend was right, and embarking on a real fitness plan is the way to go. I have had a lot of horses come in for training who’ve been seriously lacking in fitness, but their owners have told me that they were “really” fit. Your bodyworker sounds like an asset!

[theresak]

@irishchick

His bodyworker had a good point, too: if he’s calm and cool by temperament, using diet to rev him up might just make him feel “overcaffeinated”–more alert, sure, but not a pleasant way to live.

I agree with this. For quiet horses with a correct diet, I don’t really agree with feeding them something to “increase energy.” They are just naturally lower energy horses. Take advantage of that attitude where you want (relaxing trail rides) and make it very clear (i.e., no nagging with the legs) when they need to be self propelled and maintain a certain gait/level of energy during work.

[JB]

When I “woke up” and was shown just how unfit my 17h, “lazy is the only energy there is” WB, it was very eye-opening in terms of what it took to get him fit.

The FIRST thing is to teach his brain that when you say go you mean GO, and go NOW. Teaching that will be hard physical work on its own, as well as mentally taxing.

I spent a good bit of time “jumping” from the halt to a marching walk, towards a physical destination, whether a tree in the pasture, or the corner of the ring, halted (properly and quickly) there, let him rest for a few seconds, then we turned and did it again. Teaching him there WAS an end to the “torture” helped him agree to this increase in energy, pretty quickly. It really didn’t take long before he was happily jumping off my light leg, and halting with good form at the end. Over time we did a little more and a little more, turning before the corner and going another 1/4 or halfway again before halting, and soon I just stopped aiming at a landmark.

At that point we could spend a lot more time doing more and more transitions, between and within gaits. I made sure he wasn’t so tired that he started to want to go back to his old ways of offering less.

Because his mind was “slow”, and not go-go-go like a stereotypical TB, it was harder to keep him understanding that he does get to rest, but he also needs to do his part and keep going when he’s a little tired. With my TB mare, it was harder to get her to physically slow her legs to develop better balance and proper fitness because she’s all about going somewhere and faster is easier LOL

Then with the WB, the pasture was excellent for doing more “point to point” at a hand gallop and beyond, where he was fit enough for that work, and it taught him that opening up and gooooooing was actually kind of fun

So I’d start with his mental training of go means GO and go NOW, so that you don’t have to work as had to keep him in a gait, at a proper pace.

[theresak]

@JB I’m working on this now with my 4 year old Hann. I never realized how “self-propelled” my older Dutch/TB has always been, even if he sneaks behind the leg sometimes.

The baby’s first instinct when he is uncertain about anything is to slow his feet down. And I’m a strong enough rider that I could just keep adding more leg and maintain what I wanted. If finally clicked in a lesson this fall that I really need to practice and train myself to keep my leg off and he needed to keep going forward.

And this training/practice always starts at the walk because if the walk isn’t self-propelled, you’ll have to fix it at the trot and then again at the walk later on.

He is finding that a big trot can be fun, so I think showing these quiet horses that it feels good to go big and fast for a short time is really helpful for increasing their willingness to maintain forward.

[JB]

Yes!! And you have to also pay attention to whether they are going with “speed” because they’re moving their legs faster because they’re actually not balanced, or because the stride is bigger but with a slower leg movement. The difference is REALLY important