Podcast #4. Did you know that our traditional exercise and management regimes of performance horses can contribute to a decline in bone health? And may even lead to catastrophic bone injury! 

Podcast #3. Lucerne before riding? Absolutely — and here’s why…

Podcast #2. A horse's gastrointestinal tract is unique and complex. In this episode, Dr Nerida demystifies the horse's gut!

Podcast #1. In this episode, Dr Nerida talks about feeding your horse, like a horse... We can't (and shouldn't) fight 55 million years of evolution.

There is a very good reason the saying “You eat like a horse” exists; Horses. Eat. A. Lot!!! The amount of forage you feed your horse has a HUGE impact on the health, welfare, behaviour, gut health and performance of your horse as well as your horse’s risk of diseases like colic and gastric ulcers.

Weanlings are funny little creatures, endlessly curious, prone to mischief and constantly walking the tricky balance between growing fast enough to achieve their genetic potential but not growing so fast that they end up with bone or joint disease.

And because of this balance that must be achieved between growth and skeletal health, their nutrition can be challenging.

Did you know that horses WILL NOT show you they are in pain until the pain is so bad they can no longer hide it!

Abstract: Cereal grains do not form part of the natural diet of equines, however, results from an initial survey conducted, suggest that horses in the Australian thoroughbred industry are currently being fed on average about 7 kg of grain concentrate/day. Horses are not well equipped to digest the starch from cereal grains in the small intestine and as a consequence, the hindgut fermentation of starch, which may lead to hindgut lactic acidosis and diseases such as laminitis, is an evident problem in the thoroughbred industry.

Feeding a horse confined to a stable is a balancing act! You need to balance between giving them plenty to eat, to keep them chewing, happy and occupied… AND not giving them so much to eat that you have them bursting with energy and climbing the walls. Here is a little help on how to do it!

Oats and horses are well made for one another. Of all of the cereal grains we can feed to horses, oats are the only grain that can be fed safely without being cooked.

As a lover of chestnut horses, and a nutritionist, sunbleaching had frustrated me for YEARS! My gelding Poet, a stunning almost liver chestnut in the spring, would bleach to a homeless looking colour by the end of our hot summers… leaving me wondering if perhaps his mineral balance wasn’t quite right.

A racing client asked me this recently and it reminded me that when I was studying during my PhD tenure, we had looked at the effect of pre-incubating grains in pH 3.7 equine stomach fluid on the digestion of starch from those grains.

And what we found was that starch from grains that were exposed to equine stomach fluid before being digested by small intestinal enzymes was between 17% (extruded rice) and 104% (cracked triticale) MORE digested than starch that wasn’t exposed to the stomach fluid.

When a horse eats, much of its feed is made up of LARGE carbohydrate, fat and protein molecules. These large pieces of nutrient can’t be absorbed because the gut is designed to only absorb tiny little molecules. 

Why? Because if big stuff was able to cross from the gut into your horse’s body all sorts of bacteria, toxins and general muck would pass into the body and cause disease havoc!

Keeping performance horses and particularly endurance horses hydrated can be a massive challenge. And a big part of the challenge is that horses have a rather inconvenient thirst response trigger.

For horses to ‘feel thirsty’ they need a certain level of sodium in their blood. BUT when they drink fresh water, it dilutes their blood sodium and that can switch off their thirst response, even if they are still dehydrated! Which means you can have a dehydrated horse that isn’t actually ‘thirsty’! See … told you it is inconvenient.

Long periods of slow work for racehorses has long been thought of as the best way to ‘leg up’ young horses, preparing them physically for a life of racing.

BUT, three decades of research conducted by Professor Brian Nielsen of Michigan State University and his team and students is telling us, definitively, that we have got it all wrong and that speed is essential for bone health!

There are few equines I respect more than an amazing kid’s horse or pony. The patience these creatures have with their precious little cargo is incredible. And their ability to meet their little riders where they are at is something that always staggers me.

Being a reasonably rare commodity, we want to do everything we can to look after our childrens’ horses and ponies to keep them, fit, mobile, healthy and happy for as long as possible.

Here are my 5 best tips for feeding your child’s mount.

As a rider, it really is hard to top the feeling of a ride on a horse with beautiful calm, yet responsive energy. And for most of us, there is nothing quite as unnerving or unenjoyable as riding a horse that is completely full of itself and constantly reacting before thinking.

Well… it depends! If your horse is light in condition and possibly losing some weight and feels tired and lazy then yes, feeding more is probably the solution. BUT! If your horse is overweight or gaining weight, more feed is not the answer to overcoming your horse feeling tired or lazy when being ridden.

The gut health of our equines plays a significant role in determining how healthy or unhealthy our horses will be. The equine digestive tract is a large and relatively complex system. Your horse’s health depends on how well you look after this digestive system and importantly, how well the microbial population within it remains “balanced”.

Laminitis is horrible. It is distressing and painful for your horse or pony and it is gut-wrenching to watch as their owner. And if you are anything like me, it also creates a feeling of guilt…  the ‘how could I let this happen to my horse’ kind of, keep you awake at night, guilt So, for both our equines and our own sakes, we need to understand laminitis more so we have a better chance of preventing it in the future.