13.10.26
6 simple tips to get the most from your performance horse’s nutrition.
Whether you’re competing every weekend, working towards a big event or simply building your horse’s fitness at home, good nutrition plays an important role in helping them feel and perform at their best.
As workload increases, so do your horse’s nutritional requirements. Getting the basics right and making sure their diet is suited to them as an individual, can make a real difference to how they maintain condition, cope with their work and recover afterwards.
Here are six things to think about when feeding your performance horse.
Roughage should always be the starting point.
Good-quality pasture, hay and other suitable fibre sources are essential for supporting digestive health and should make up the foundation of your horse’s diet.
Horses require a minimum of 1.5% to 2% of their bodyweight in roughage per day. For a 500kg horse, this is approximately 7.5kg – 10kg per day. It is essential for overall health and wellbeing that this requirement is met(Ermers et al., 2023).
As their workload increases, you may need to add more energy and nutrients to meet the demands of their work, but don’t overlook the importance of good-quality roughage as the foundation.
There isn’t one feeding program that will suit every performance horse.
A naturally forward, good-doing horse has very different requirements to a horse that struggles to maintain condition through a busy competition season.
Look at your horse’s workload, body condition, temperament and how they are feeling in their work. From there, you can choose a feed that provides the level and type of energy they need without supplying more than necessary.
The Hygain range includes a number of different options for performance horses, making it easier to find the right fit for the individual.
Protein is sometimes associated mainly with young and growing horses, but it is also an important part of the performance horse’s diet. Hard-working muscles need a good supply of quality protein and essential amino acids to support muscle maintenance, development and repair (Dunstan et al., 2020).
It’s also worth remembering that the percentage of protein on the bag doesn’t tell the whole story. The quality of the protein and the amino acids it provides are just as important.
At Hygain®, we use high-quality protein sources throughout our feed range, including legumes such as lupins, faba beans and soybean meal. Legumes are naturally rich in protein while being relatively low in sugar/starch, making them a valuable source of slow-release energy. Their quality protein and amino acid content also helps support muscle development, maintenance and overall body condition.Hygain® Showtorque® and Hygain® Grotorque® are excellent examples of high-protein feeds, providing up to 25% protein and specifically formulated to support the increased nutritional demands of performance and growing horses.
Australian conditions can be tough on working horses, particularly through the warmer months.
When your horse sweats, they lose both water and important electrolytes. The harder they work and the more they sweat, the greater those losses can become. You will notice that when your horse sweats, they become foamy. This is largely due to latherin, a surface-active protein found in equine sweat. Latherin acts as a natural surfactant, helping sweat spread across the horse’s coat and promoting efficient evaporative cooling (Vance et al., 2013). While this is an effective cooling mechanism, substantial sweating can result in significant losses of both fluid and electrolytes, which need to be adequately replaced(McCutcheon and Geor, 1998).
Make sure your horse has access to fresh, clean water at all times and consider additional electrolyte supplementation to replace what they are losing through sweat.
Hydration is something to think about every day, not just when you arrive at a competition.
Hygain® Regain® is a palatable, apple-flavoured powdered electrolyte designed to replenish key electrolytes lost through sweat during exercise and hot weather. Another way to support hydration is by incorporating Hygain® Tru Beet® into your horse’s diet. Tru Beet® absorbs a significant amount of water when soaked, providing a simple and practical way to increase water intake while also supplying a highly digestible source of fibre.
We put a lot of thought into how we fuel horses for work, but what happens afterwards is just as important.
After harder training or competition, your horse needs time and the right nutritional support to recover and replenish what has been used during exercise.
This is particularly important for horses working or competing on consecutive days, when good recovery today can help prepare them for the work you’re asking of them tomorrow(Lacombe et al., 2001).
For high-performance horses, Hygain® offers a range of supplements that can be incorporated into the diet to provide additional nutritional support for recovery, including the antioxidant supplement Hygain® Super Anti-OX®.
Strenuous exercise can increase the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which may contribute to oxidative stress when the balance between oxidants and the body’s antioxidant defence systems is disrupted (Williams,2016). Research in horses has demonstrated changes in oxidative stress and antioxidant status following intense and endurance exercise, highlighting the importance of adequate antioxidant nutrition for the equine athlete (Williams, 2016).
Hygain® Super Anti-OX® provides a concentrated source of natural antioxidants that can be incorporated into the diet to support the body’s antioxidant defence systems and muscle recovery following exercise.
Competition already means a change of scenery, routine and environment, so try to keep your horse’s feeding program familiar.
Take their usual Hygain® feed and normal roughage with you, keep feeding times relatively consistent and avoid introducing anything new immediately before or during a competition.
If you do need to change their feed as their workload increases, make those changes gradually and give them plenty of time to adjust (Garber et al., 2020).
Ultimately, feeding the performance horse is about looking at the whole picture. Their discipline, workload, body condition, temperament and individual metabolism all play a part in determining what they need.
At Hygain®, we’ve spent more than 40 years developing equine feeds and supplements backed by nutritional science, with options to suit horses across a wide range of disciplines and workloads.
If you’re not quite sure whether your current feeding program is keeping up with what you’re asking of your horse, you don’t have to work it out alone. Our Hygain nutrition team is here to help you find the right feeding program for your horse, if you have any questions, or would like to book a free 30-minute nutrition consult head to: https://pages.hygain.com.au/nutrikey
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