Feeding Your Horse to Perform

A high-performance horse’s body needs fuel to run efficiently and at its optimal level.
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Your equine athlete requires sophisticated fuel to stay on top of his game.

A high-performance horse is an athlete at the top of his game. Like an engine, his body needs fuel to run efficiently and at its optimal performance level, and digestible energy is that fuel. In addition to digestible energy–the usable portion of the total energy in the diet–an owner must balance a number of other nutrients to power the horse to compete.

A horse’s activity level and body processes dictate his energy needs. A grazing horse receives a constant low-level source of energy from the forage (grasses, hay) he consumes throughout the day–enough to maintain body condition and provide energy for daily activities such as eating, drinking, walking, and breathing. So a horse with minimal work demands does quite well on a forage-heavy diet that’s relatively low in digestible energy and high in fiber. Horses digest this fiber in the large intestine, in a fermenting process that breaks down the fiber sources. "It’s a very slow process because it takes so long to get these fermentable carbohydrates broken down into energy molecules," says Carey A. Williams, PhD, equine extension specialist and associate director of extension for Rutgers University’s Equine Science Center. "From the time that horse eats that piece of hay, it can be a day and half later that he will fully digest it and get energy from it."

On the other end of the spectrum is a horse performing at a high level that is expending large amounts of energy and, thus, needs more digestible energy (measured in megacalories) to meet his body’s needs. And while fiber remains an essential part of the diet, it’s the soluble carbohydrates, such as starches, and fat in the diet that can provide that extra energy punch

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Written by:

Molly Sorge is an equine journalist from Rother Glen, Va. She is also a contributing writer for The Chronicle of the Horse.

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