really>? i did not know that.
Did not know what?
You feed a horse for what work it is doing and needs. You supplement for loss of grass no matter what breed.
oh, sorry. I did not know that most OTTBs do not do very well on pasture. Why is that?
Just think of a TB as a greyhound and a quarter horse looks like a St Bernard. They will never look the same.
Tbs are hot breeds and āgrain goes to their headā this means that heat them up on oats and corn, you end up with a horse as silly as a 2 Bob watch. You end up with horses losing weight from ulcers, etc, etc. Generally as you do get horses allergic to some feed and okay on oats.
A hot horse means how quickly they react.
Racehorses can be fed more grain than hay, this is incorrect and unhealthy hence the ulcers.
Throw them out on pasture and grassy hay until no ulcers and quiet and sane as well as fat. Then use barley and if you want rice to ride them. Once you start upper level work add a feed that has protein, no oats, no corn and no molasses.
Drop the feed down if out of work to prevent tying up.
@SuzieQNutter. What i want to know is why there are few OTTB that do well on just pasture. This is something i am unaware of, and news to me. I have never had a thoroughbred nor a quarter horse. Lots of other breeds, but neither of those two. So when i read this about OTTB i was surprised. And i am wondering why this is so?
A lot of them have a higher metabolism than āwarmā or ācoldā bloods. Just like some people have a higher metabolism and do not gain weight easily like us short stocky types!
3 Likes
well then, i suppose it would depend a lot on the pasture as well as on the fuel consumption of the horse. All except 2 of my equines gain too much weight on my pastures. (old gray arab mare is always spare, and swaybacked older Akhal-teke x arab+twh shows ribs most of the time, i think it is more age-related than breed with themā¦but maybe arabian and or akhal tekke breeds?? dunno) So i guess ymmv?
As well as different muscle types.
1 Like
i would think that pastures vary even more.
individual pastures as much as individual horses and regions as much as breeds. To say that most thoroughbreds do not do well on just pasture ā¦that is something i am having trouble digesting.
1 Like
I know lots of people who have OTTBs. I can not say that they do not do well on pasture but I can say that none of them do fine on just hay. All the working (second job) OTTBs I know require grain to keep their weight up.
I am not saying there are no OTTBs that do fine on just hay (or pasture), just that they are less common than the OTTBs who require hard feed to maintain weight while working.
4 Likes
You are right. Most pastures would not be large enough, or would not have enough quality grass, to support the typical TB metabolism. But some pastures are (and you are probably more familiar with these types of pastures than other posters) and some horses would do better than others.
1 Like
Not their preferred buyer? I would think a seller would be happy with a buyer who 1) can pay and 2) has decades of experience in good horsemanship so that the horse will be well taken care of. What would the horse prefer - to be used as a prop in a photo shoot or to be cared for by someone who grooms him daily, keeps his feet trimmed regularly, makes sure heās up-to-date on vaccinations, floating, etc, makes sure heās getting the proper nutrition and is at a healthy weight, etc?
To me, these ads that are like Barbie photo shoots appeal to, well, people who treat horses like a Barbie accessory and donāt really have a lot of horse sense. People who are concerned with maintaining a long, flowing mane and tail and braid it up with ribbons and flowers, but donāt realize their horse is off on the left fore.
Just like the photos showing the horse laying down with a person sprawled on top of them. But no photos or videos of the horse being ridden. Most buyers are looking for a horse to ride, not one to use as a couch.
If someone wants to take pictures like that, fine. But donāt use them in sales ads - at least, donāt let them be the only photos in the sales ads.
3 Likes
It is a myth that repeats over and over and over and over
Take my boy, Stars. Owned by a lovely lower level rider having lessons from a great instructor and working for a vet.
She followed everything the vet said. Had him on grain, had him on supplements yadda, yadda yadda. She did everything she was told.
Ulcers, could not ride him unless ridden at least 3 times a week. Could not keep weight on. I was told he bucked actually 100% bucked the whole time on the lunge. I was warned he was a bucker. He doesnāt just buck. He leaps in the air and bucks.
She sold him because she wanted a horse she could get on if not ridden 3 days a week. He was advertised for an advanced rider and I was told he bucks.
I am too old to ride something that bucks.
I buy him take him off all grain. We make our own hay. During the drought we ended up with not one blade of grass on 100 acres. A tonne of whole barley was given to us. We fed 7 times a day to just try and stop them eating the ground. We mixed boiled barley with lucerne chaff.
Boiled barley is old school. It gives an apple rump with out going to the head.
I use an extruded pellet by Prydes called Easigoing. It has barley, no oats, no corn, no molasses and has vitamins and minerals with more protein than Easiride which I used to feed. They also have a lick block that has all the things in it that a show horse needs and they can have whenever they want.
Stars is a pleasure to work with. He has NEVER bucked on the lunge and I lunged him for a few minutes yesterday with no work for months and months because of work commitment, rain and the short daylight hours at the moment.
He does nothing but try for me and that is all I ask from my horses.
He has never bucked in the arena. He does not buck out on the trail when he is in work. I havenāt been out for a year as they locked the gate because of an idiot out there with a cross bow.
I can rinse and repeat over 50 years of retraining tbs. You can tell people to stop feeding grain. They wonāt believe it. Just buy the horse and do it.
I have 3 x tbs here, one over 20 years old. One nearly 20 and Stars is a bit younger. Sane, fat and rideable.
There is a saying with tbs. It is nice to have a fat tb in your paddock, but it is your fault if you canāt ride it. That refers to tbs hyped up on grain.
2 Likes
Facebook post to an OTTB group:
Blockquote
Roadie is up for raffle to approved homes! Get your chance to own a once in a lifetime horse! We are offering 300 spots to win ownership of the coolest OTTB there is. Each spot is only $100 per spot. Buy one or by many! As soon as all the spots are sold we will do a scratch off number winner!!! Good luck to all!!! Many many people know and love Roadie. He travels sound and has a great brain. He will not pass a PPE.
Ad is accompanied by photo of horse laying down and 3 kids standing behind it, 2 pictures that are head-on shots of it being ridden at a walk, and 1 picture of it standing with someone on it and a bunch of people standing in front of it so you canāt see its legs.
No mention of age, height, temperament, WHY he wonāt pass a PPE
Letās do the math: $100 x 300 tickets = $30,000
2 Likes
This is ridiculous lmao 
on FB you canāt even win a saddle pad in a raffle anymore. Are they gonna refund the money if less than 100ppl participate, or maybe sell the horse for less than that? And who wants to own such an animal anyway + be burdened with vet bills for the next couple of years. Some ppl are really delusional š¤¦
Most of these kinds of raffles have fine print that if they donāt reach the target number of applicants by X date the money is theirs and the raffle is cancelled. So they either get a few hundred or thousand dollars for no work (and keep the horse), or they sell the horse for well over market value.
1 Like
Well thatās a new one to meā¦ a horse raffle on FB? wow.
2 Likes
I am not that poster but what they said has not been true in my experience.
I have a whole herd of easy keeping TBs so I must be the luckiest person aliveā¦ However, I can say that very few horses in work in general do fine on just hay. Very few barns have a pasture big enough, with quality enough grass, to sustain a horse in work. Iāve found that TBs fresh off the track do have a high metabolism, but once they are let down for several months and fed high quality forage+grain, they tend to be like any other horse.
Every horse is different, as is their needs ā any horse in moderate work tends to need grain to keep their condition. Right now the horse who gets the most grain on our farm is a retired QH - he gets a whopping four times the amount of grain (weight wise) as our next highest grained TB. Every horse is different.
5 Likes
I can speak to my small sample size of one OTTB. 12 years old, 24/7 turnout, ridden 4-5 times/week.
We have pretty nice pastures, mixed grass and red clover. Fertilized and not overgrazed at all (rotational grazing). Dude still needs grain (only about 4lbs/day of a high protein feed) and alfalfa as a supplement to keep him muscled for dressage. Maybe someday when he retires I can keep him on just grass and hay, but definitely not now.
My other dude has to be in a grazing muzzle and dry lotted part of the time because the grass is too much. He gets no grain at all.
Of course depends on the horse, but a lot of TBs simply have higher metabolisms than a lot of other horses.
3 Likes
Honestly the raffle ad is truly sad for Roadie. Itās a huge red flag that they donāt say anything about what is going on with him PPE-wise, but a lot of horses donāt pass a PPE as in have 0 issues found on it. That is always a balancing act, especially if buying a horse that is in work and has maintenance.
I do ride, and so of course Iām always looking at the photos and videos of the ridden work. However I wouldnāt say I mind some types of photos or videos of a calm temperament. There was a video circulating from Australia of a horse for sale and the seller did all kinds of things to show him as being calm. If that was a horse available and reasonably close when I was shopping, that would definitely be a selling point.
