Good evening everybody, and thank you for joining us on today's webinar which is entitled The Winning Formula, Nutrition, Performance and Longevity in the event horse. So we have a trio of expert speakers this evening, so we have Harry Mead, who's a leading event rider and FEI world number one in 2025 and 2026, with multiple five-star podiums and world championship silver. He's also a BBC commentator, eventing advocate and recipient of the British Equine Federation Medal of Honour.
Secondly, we have Doctor Christiana Ober, who is a UK based equine vet with a breadth of international experience specialising in sports medicine, orthopaedics, and competition horse management. Formerly vet to Canada's 3 day eventing team, she now serves New Zealand's team. And finally we have Doctor Marga Mass, who is an equine vet nutritionist and DNH's head of Veterinary equine Health and Performance.
Alongside her work on product development and advising horse owners on performance and clinical nutrition cases, her PhD explores how nutrition and management affect digestive and metabolic health in Iberian horses. So welcome to the three of you, thanks for being on this webinar tonight. Also, big thank you to our sponsors DNH who are experts in equine nutrition products.
It's due to their kind sponsorship that allows us to be here tonight and enjoy this complimentary webinar. So throughout the talk, if any of you have got any questions for our panel of speakers, please can you put the questions in the dedicated Q&A box, which you should find at the bottom of your screen. The webinar will take about 50 minutes, so we should have 10 minutes at the end to go through as many of those questions as possible at the end.
If you've got any other comments, queries, technical issues, then there's a dedicated chat box for the webinar vet team, so pop those types of er queries, queries there and the webinar vet team can get back to you individually. So I'll be back for the Q&A at the end, so for now I'll hand you over to Harry, Christina, Christiana, and Margo. Take it away, guys.
Thanks. So just to start off, I, I thought I'd give a little bit of a, an overview as to firstly what our approach is, and secondly how do we put that into practise. And as it says on the screen, it's, it's a very basic, idiot proof philosophy, which is we try and look at the small details, we look after those, and then the big details look after themselves, and really what, what that comes down to is actually just being thorough with.
Your every aspect, whether it's a feeding, whether it's a shoeing, whether it's a saddle fitting, whether it's a veterinary work, whether it, whether it's the approach to training, and a lot of that comes down to obviously using the best people, doing it in a, in a well thought out way and importantly, getting the timings right. In terms of the, the, the, the sort of overview, I thought just to start with before we start diving into the, the details and the progression throughout the year. Our, our, our horses have a, a hugely varied, .
Sort of annual routine, which is, you know, this time of year, most of them are out in the field on holiday, being normal horses, they have their shoes off, they're out normally for between 4 and 8 weeks or 4 and 12 weeks, depend depending on the horse and their age and stage, and they're out 24 hours a day. In groups of 2 or 3 or 4, and they, they get fed while they're in the field, they get plenty of access to, to, hay or hailage as well. And, and then they come in, they start their preseason, sort of light conditioning work in a, in a fairly old fashioned way of doing plenty of roadwork, light building up, of light schooling, and then start adding in, the more intense training, so, so the, the galloping, the, the proper schooling.
The jumping and then their season starts beginning of March and that runs on through to the to at some point, depending on the horse between September and October so the, the, the different times of year they they're in very different levels of work but also the, the weather is plays a huge impact on their diet and what's needed just to maintain a consistent, condition. And, and also their, their energy levels, but also the intensity of training as well is, is, is very varied, and. Yeah, when Margot, I, I, I mean, I thought I'd just ask you when, when horses come in for their holiday, I mean, I obviously have a good idea as to what they get and what, why, why they get that, but, what are the key aspects that, that you look for, you know, from, from our point of view.
Sure, thanks, Harry. And thank you for running us through the, the year of a, of an event host. So as you say, when, when they come in, from their holiday, the main goal really is that we haven't taken any step backs, if that makes sense in terms of their condition and their, their suitability to restart training and get back to a nice level of fitness.
So in terms of what we do nutritionally, I would say that that pretty much applies to the entire season, but we take, as you know, a forage first approach. So we really look after the quality of the forage as the foundation of the diet, and we always aim for horses having what we call an adequate forage provision. So that typically looks like 1.5% of their body weight in daily forest.
Tryma as a baseline, obviously that fluctuates depending on their appetite levels and what they're doing, but that that's kind of where, where we, where we are at and certainly as they holiday out in the fields, pasture contributes a significant proportion of that forage provision, and then the, the other aspect of the diet would be supply. Through complementary feeds or compound feeds, and the feeds that the horses are on whilst they're on holiday, they do have a predominant breakdown of energy sources in the form of fibre and quality oils. What that allows us to do is to maintain a healthy digestive system, support their microbiome, and through that addition of of oils which make up what we could possibly call a high fat diet, it allows them to create and maintain a positive energy balance.
So the goal is that the horses don't come from their holiday having lost a significant amount of weight, which then Most of the time also involves the loss of some vital muscle mass, so that's what we're trying to prevent and, and really, and really. Work against one aspect that we really look after when we, when we work on a high fat diet is also the antioxidant contribution. So we, we, we strive to maintain an adequate supply of vitamin E, as well when they are off, and we will talk about vitamin E when they are in training and competing, but it's something that we certainly also pay attention to during their holiday.
And the goal, as you can, as it's kind of illustrated here, is that nutrition or diet becomes entirely complementary with the with the training and as they move out of their holiday and into the season. And one thing that happens also at this crucial point is that they do also go into their, what we call their, their preseason checks, and I'll, I'll pass the mic over to Cristiana now to talk a little bit as well about the importance of clean sport and, and, and working with brands that abide by those principles, and then she'll take you through the preseason checks as well. Yeah, thanks, Marga.
Obviously, it's very important to me. We do so many things to minimise the risk of contamination. And working along with anti-doping, from everything to minimising contamination within feed sources and supplements to ensuring our withdrawal times for any medication administered, is right on.
And I think the last thing I, I want to do as a vet is need to worry about from the nutritional side that there's any kind of possibility of contamination or quality control. Issues. So I think it's important to know, obviously in whatever yard you're working with and with whatever feed company you're working with, it gives you confidence to know that they're doing that testing in alignment with all of our prohibited substances and knowing that it's going to ensure quality control, and that's not something that I have to worry about in a, in a professional yard that's competing under, under FAI regulations.
So I think It gives you confidence to, to not have to manage that side of things if you know you're working with a company that understands the anti-doping and the, the quality control factor and how important and crucial that is. Brilliant. Yeah, absolutely.
And Christiana, would you summarise for us what are the key aspects that you looked for during your pre-season and post-season exams? Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think the goal of the, the veterinary programme is longevity, and by the time these horses get to the level, there's been a tremendous number of years, dollars, energy that everyone on the team, the rider, the nutritionist, The physio, the farrier, the vet, the groom, the owners have put into getting the horses there.
So I think ultimately, the goal is to get them there, of course, but also most importantly, to keep them there for as long as we can. And so I think when we look at Pre and post-season exams, I think they always have to be individualised, but if we start kind of first with kind of on Harry's calendar there, looking at the postseason, so before the horses are going out on their holiday time, I would say the main goal there is to detect subclinical issues or early issues, early injuries before they're turned away on their holiday. So that might be after their 3 day event.
Of course, if I've been with them at a competition, I'm gonna have an idea if there's anything we need to follow up on. But just a basic checkup postseason to trot up, palpate legs, potentially do some postseason ultrasound exams because I think we all know there are subclinical things that can be detected, addressed, dealt with before they turn into larger issues. So, it gives me confidence in the postseason exams that we're turning those horses out in a healthy state.
That they're gonna be able to enjoy their holiday, they're going to be able to absorb the nutrition, and hopefully they're gonna come back, fit and well to be able to start training for, the next season. And I guess the preseason along the same vein. So after those horses are coming back in out of the field, they might start doing the roadwork as Harry says.
And then there's, there's probably an appropriate time for each individual horse that we would do an early kind of preseason examination. And I think that goal isn't necessarily to detect injuries. It probably is.
More to look at that horse as a whole and as an individual, and say, what are, what are the areas of weakness that we could improve to make this horse a better all-around athlete? And I think making the horse a better all-around athlete is going to also equate to longevity. So for each individual that may be doing laboratory work all The horses would get an orthopaedic examination, of course, but certainly, there might be horses where we're monitoring muscle enzymes as they increase their training.
There might be horses where really the key to their performance is their stomach health. And so those horses may be getting, pre-season kind of gastroscopy exams to see how our nutrition is, is coming into play with their Stomach health, and just general tailored plans for that particular horse to assess joint health, you know, topline strength, health, conditioning, and I guess when, when you've been working through them or with them through the years, you get a real impression for what's normal for a particular horse. And I think that's where Working as part of a team, which, you know, in this situation where you've got feedback from the rider, you've got critical feedback from the grooms that notice very, very early minor changes, they might say, look, this horse normally has a more filled right front fetlock, but I've noticed in the last week, the left front fetlock is more.
Field. So there's very minor changes that give feedback from the physio who might say to me, look, she's usually really tight in the right side of her lumbars, but now she's tight in the left side of her lumbars. So, I think it's all those early signs that the team kind of communicates about that then hopefully allow us to early Or identify issues that we can address before an injury might might transpire.
So I think it's all about individual getting to know what's normal for the horse, getting feedback from the whole team, and then using that information to tailor, to tailor the examination so that we can have hopefully a successful and healthy season. Definitely, and as we move into the season, into the competition season, how do you integrate, those same key principles of, you know, teamwork and really paying attention to the small detail into how you, inform, what would be an optimal training plan for each horse? Yeah.
Again, that's going to be individualised. So, potentially the rider, Harry's going to give feedback about energy level, how the horse is feeling as the, the fitness and the, training programme starts to intensify. I think that the yard feeding back to me, and that's often like a groom when they're doing routine trot up.
Of the horses, they get very good at, they might not identify exactly what the movement pattern is, but they will identify that there's a change. And so I think when you're looking at early fatigue or a horse starting to absorb training versus early injury, that might be a change in locomotion, you know, so I think. In a yard where the horses are being trotted up and the grooms are assessing them and giving feedback, it's not going to be an overt lameness that we might start to see.
It might be just the horses coming out a little more stiff. And so again, it's early identification of those things. And also we'll identify, I mean, we may have a horse that can tolerate quite a lot of roadwork.
We may have another horse that, that the feet or something else in their body allows us to structure the conditioning. To to cater to that. So I think it's not one size fits all when it comes into the workload, you know, certain horses might have water treadmill integrated in.
Some horses might have more road work or hill work, and I think that probably getting feedback from The rider about, recovery and how those horses are feeling day in and day out. And then, of course, critical feedback from the groom, again, physio farrier in regards to, certain signs that are a reason to have me come in, and, and assess, you know, and just proactively assess how The horses feel in their body, doing flexion tests, trotting them up. Watching them work, I think is a great way.
Even if there's not a lameness concern, maybe just being able to watch them work on the flat early in the season, that, that gives us, feedback. And I think the interesting thing is when you look at how things go, and, and Harry can probably also Discussed this as well, but it's nice in that early season, we have more time, you know, it's not like competitions have started. You have more time to really be able to watch the horses work and potentially incorporate things or try things, whether it's different strength and conditioning or other things that you might see the benefit as the season goes on.
Thanks, Cristiana. This is great and certainly very informative. I'm sure everyone has enjoyed having a bit of an insight on what goes on.
Harry, I'm sure everyone would also love to know a little bit about how you integrate training plans and how you use performance data and how you track your horse's training. Yeah, I think, it like Cristiano said, it, it's about treating each horse like an individual, but also learning from. Past experiences with that individual and with other horses, and you know for us we're, we're quite lucky in eventing because our horses are able to have fairly long careers and so particularly once they've come out of their developmental years and, and sort of hit a bit more of a status quo, you know, when they're 9, 1011, 12, on into their teens, you know, often you're following a similar pattern and you can, The, the more years you've had with that horse, the the more you can preempt, what's likely to, you know, what what likely things you're, you're going to come across during the season and during their development.
So you know, and that's where rolling it back to when they come in from their holiday, it, it's so important that they come in, in the optimum shape because if you have a horse that comes in. From their break, their, their postseason holiday and they're skinny and in poor condition, yeah it's really hard to then try and manage that horse when you're already behind the curve and you're and you're trying to get weight on them, you're trying to, but you know you're, the more feed you put into them, the fresher they're gonna be when they're in that very low intensity work, the preseason work, so, so it's important that, When they go out, they, they get enough, enough feed. So, so ours actually get plenty of, of, of, of feed during, during the offseason where you know they'd be on, you know, fibre we feed Dodson Hole fibre fusion, they'd be on a, a pelleted rice pan oil which is, the ultimate bat the, build and glow, they'd be on a liquid oil, I feed rapeseed oil and then they'd be on.
conditioning cubes, which, sorry, kush care, which is a a form of, conditioning cubes, and, and that really is, it, it, it, it, it means that we can monitor and, and track where they are in their condition. So you, you ask what kind of things we do, you know, a classic thing is we, we weigh the horses on a regular basis, even throughout the holidays they'd, they'd be weighed, so they. I, I want them to, I, I know where they're gonna finish the season, but the key thing is where, where they are when they come in from their holidays, so you know, the ones who would get too fat, you, you're trying to keep weight off them, the ones who would get too lean, you're trying to keep weight on them, and then you're looking from when they come in from their holiday, to a, a very, steady.
Progression to their fighting weight, and again, you know, this is where things like weighing horses is actually, it doesn't tell you very much, it tells you a number, so it's how you use that number and what, what we do is, you know, we weigh, we weigh the top horses every day and then most horses 4 days a week, but every Tuesday their weight gets put onto a chart and that gets tracked across 52 weeks of the year. And what we're looking for is to have a steady. Decrease, a steady taper from where they come in to what their optimum weight is, and anytime, any horse walks past me or I, I see it out of the corner of my eye, and you, You know, if you're always looking with that critical line and you think a horse looks a little bit light or a little bit big or, or just right, I, I'll annotate that, I'll annotate that graph.
And so it just means that after a certain amount of time you, you can tell very clearly what each horse's optimum weight is for the different weeks of the year and when. When, when you, I, I think crucially you've got so many variables and, and factors that are gonna change, so you know, classically when they start galloping their workload increases hugely. Then when the weather warms up, you know, metabolism changes as it does when the spring grass comes through, when they go away and have a stairway competition or or a long journey.
And so what we do is we, we sort of tend to know from previous years for, for that individual horse when they're likely to suddenly gain weight or suddenly lose weight, and we therefore feed in a probably a slightly different way to most people because we, we actually can preempt those changes. So just before that they, you know, they're gonna start dropping off, say the 3rd week in February when they step up their galloping. Before that, before you get that visible drop, we, we, we increase their feeds and we know what we're increasing them to because we've got all of the historic data, and likewise, you know, say in the, you know, a, a, a month or 6 weeks later when the spring grass comes through and you, and they change quite radically from their winter feed to their summer feed, we, we do that ahead of them suddenly ballooning and gazing, gaining weight.
So you get this seamless change, but you're ahead of the curve. But there, there are all kinds of different things that we track and change and it's whether it's the fitness. I mean I've collected the data from every horse that has gone to a 4 star long or a 5 star for my yard since 2001.
I've got a record of every bit of fast work they've done on which gallops, how quick, you know, how, how many times they've gone up at what speed, how long it's taken them to recover. And, but also those individual bits then combine to give a, a, an overall view, and, and these charts probably don't really mean anything to anyone else because it's a little bit like making up your own form of writing music and looking at a sheet and you can understand it. But, but effectively I can, I can pick any horse in any year and I, I'd always write an introduction and a summary at the beginning and end to say, you know, what, were, were they coming off, for example, are they going to Burnley off the back of badminton or are they.
Going off the back of a year off because obviously it makes a big difference, but also really importantly, at the end, were they fit enough? Was I completely happy, would I have done anything different? Sometimes it's a case of yep, they were completely fit enough, if anything, I probably could have afforded to back off earlier.
And, and so I, I guess with this sort of fine tuning, you, you start to be able to build for each individual body type of horse, which you take into consideration with that, the different breeds, the different characters and temperaments, and, and confirmationally the way they operate because I'd have certain horses I'd be keen to work on more of an incline and other ones that I'd prefer to work on less of an incline. But, but I can, I can learn from what I've done previously and then make very fine tuned changes, but really with the confidence that actually you don't need to go berserk, you, you, you're just, you're on the right path, they're gonna be fit enough, and you know, it, it looks after a few of the major things when you're talking about nutrition. Fitness, recovery, you know, all, all, all of those things can actually be, be planned out in advance if you, if you, if you collect the data.
Yes, definitely. I think one of the key aspects that you really value as a, as a, as an elite rider is, is also that, that nutritional plan that enables you to have options where, you know, you can meet each horse individually where they are, as well as how their needs evolve throughout the season. What we really strive to support from a from a diet perspective aside from performance is also health.
So there are a few key nutritional principles which almost make up what good looks like and that we try to maintain whether they are in their holidays or during the season. So aside from that first provision that we already touched on. We also believe in feeding little and often, so there is actually a threshold of 0.4% of the horse's body weight in concentrated feed per meal.
So that's roughly 2 kg of feed in each, in each meal for a for a 500 kg horse. So we try and stay below that at every feed. And I would say pretty much every one of Harry's horses is definitely under the upper threshold of starch and sugar intake per kilo of body weight per feed.
So that's something that has widely been supported as as a as a limit in order to support gastric health as well as metabolic health. And then there's also these key nutrients for, for, for performance horse health that I've put here on the slide, so mainly lysin as the first limiting amino acid in the horse, as well as the provision of vitamin E. So we really try and stay within those levels every day.
So there is a, it is something that we will talk a bit later on in terms of feeding at the big event, but the nutrient supply, regardless of the, of what we do with. The Energy supply for the for each horse individually, the nutrient requirements, they pretty much stay the same, so we do that through the combination of feed and balancer just to make sure that we tick all of those boxes and then we can play with the with the energy levels and the and the energy composition and I would say it's this kind of brings us on to talk a little bit about the importance of balancing energy energy sources and This perhaps is, is highlighted in the, in the eventing world because the event course. Requires an ability to tap into different energy sources and different and different types of fuels, so to speak, depending on the nature of the efforts that they do.
So the availability of those different types of fuels is heavily dependent on the composition of their diets. So this is why we really play with adequate provision. Of sources of fibre, sources of starch and sugar, which would be fast released carbohydrates, which are actually really important for replenishing glycogen stores.
So obviously there is there is a case for controlling the amount of starch. That the horse consumes in every meal and throughout the day, but it is actually a necessary source of energy, certainly for performance horses. So we really look at balancing those out because they, they accomplish differential metabolic and physiological functions within the body.
So it's important that we really use those to our advantage. One of the key aspects that nutrition can support with is what we call metabolic adaptations to training. So, as Harry has mentioned, he, he and Cristiano really work together tailoring the training programme to the level of fitness, the age, the injury history, or, or predis.
Position of each horse and this often involves combining different training modalities and ultimately the goal is to support metabolic efficiency and for the horse to be able to effectively use different types of energy through different different intensities and durations of effort. This, this slide is quite, quite comprehensive, so obviously we're not going to read through all of it, but it was just a case of illustrating really that depending on the type of efforts, so crucially, whether it is slow and steady or really fast submaximal or maximal effort, there will be a different type of dietary energy source. That will be particularly suitable to meet the requirements from that effort.
So, because most of the horses during the season are are pretty much at full fitness, their, their muscles are actually very efficient at oxidising energy sources in a in an in an aerobics, so in the presence of. Environment and this is where that forage first diet complemented with fat sources provides them with fuel that they can actually use to sustain that effort and it's only when really the intensity ramps up so that happens particularly over the show jumping course or cross country. Of course that's where really we need those glycogen stores at the ready, and they have to be replenished once they once they are consumed.
So we will actually tailor the post effort meal to replenishing those glycogen stores as well. And this is where having all of those different options enables Harry and his team to really know what, what, what can support each horse depending on what they have done and what they are getting ready to do. Harry, would you perhaps give us a bit of an insight on what that, what does that look practically on the yard?
Yeah, I, I think, I mean, in, in, in really simple terms, it, it, it's, it's, you know, the three things that we're really looking for from a feeding perspective, the three, aspects of the first probably being the most important, which, which you don't see, and this is where we rely on, the likes of, of Margo and, and, and Christiana, . To, to, to be able to guide us on, on the thresholds of the vitamins and minerals because those are the, parts that you, you, you know, obviously absolutely fundamental to having a, a healthy horse that can perform, train, and be less likely to stress their system unnecessarily. And, and then the, the other two variables, you know, which, which our, our monitoring would, would pick up on, one is condition, .
And, and as I talked about before, just following that gradual taper so they don't arrive too big, they don't arrive too late, too light, but really importantly, you don't get there correctly, but on the way, having sort of their weight plummeted and then come back up and then plummeted again, then because you're, you're just losing, you're losing condition which you then can't just replace, in, in, in, in, in, in the short term and obviously then the, the third aspect is, is there, . You know, how fresh they're feeling, their, their energy levels, and obviously from knowing the horses, and knowing how they're likely to, to change, so their diet in. In you know, say January, February when you're really the horses are in very high intensity work, they're galloping twice a week, and they're doing a decent amount of work on the gallops and then in between, and I always say with eventing you, you need 9 days in a week and it's, it's frustrating because you're, you're trying to give the horses rest days, but at the same time.
They're galloping twice a week. You're, you're probably giving them one jump, maybe two jumps a week, say 2 dressage sessions a week, a lunge, you, you, you pretty quickly start getting up to 89, 10 days in a week, in a week. So, so what, what we're, we're looking to do is to be able to, .
Work out the, the flow of the season and, and something that I, I became interested in about 20 years ago, which has really sort of helped me was was looking at periodization of training. So, so, so tracking, tracking the horses in that early stage and and I learned a lot of this from human athletes, and, and the models of training of the, the different, different sections of, of how you're building up so that you, you, you have a. Particular emphasis on, on different types of work, and you, you build, you, you sort of rotate through those up until your peak performance, and, and then you back off, you allow them to recover and then you build up again.
And, and within that you'd have certain, certain recovery periods, just making sure that you don't get tempted to overtrain. I, I, I always try and say to myself, as a reminder, and Christiana wouldn't know this because I've, I've said it out loud to her if I've ever felt. Worried that a horse might have picked up an injury, but is that our horses are more likely to get, sorry, our horses are more likely to not get to, to the event than to get there not fit enough and not prepared in any one of the phases.
And, and so that's just reminding yourself that actually you, you, you can do it all but just don't do too much, and, and give them those, those, those periods of rest and recovery. And, and in terms of the. I, I, I, I, in terms of the, the different types of, of monitoring, I'm like, I, I guess we, you know, we, we've also got, we, we try and, track, you know, when we look at the stomach health of each individual horse, you know, we're obviously, we're obviously, you know, we're trying to feed them, you know, a significant amount of fibre and oil, particularly in the, in, in the, .
Winter months, you know, plenty of oil to supplement their diet, and we, we try and give them their feeds 4 times a day, so whatever their total intake is, we, we, we do that in 4, increments, and the same with their, their hay or hailage, they get that 4 times a day. So you're really trying to mimic that grazing. Style of, of, of, of living and with as much turnout as possible, we, we're not able to turn out for a period in the winter, but then once we get into the, into the spring, most of the horses live out overnight, in, in individual fields, but again, then it's about managing the grass and really try, you know, we have the sheep that have to work pretty hard to keep the grass down in the spring, but, but we also try and look at things like, you know, when, when we, when we.
Then if we do routine gastroscoping, you know, we, we, we actually just keep a record of what every horse's stomach looks like at different times of the year and, and you know, a frustrating thing that we found is trying to have the, as, as close to the perfect model, of management is, is. You can without driving all your staff completely mad. You still get, you know, some horses that are just prone and predisposed to, to getting stomach ulcers and, particularly pyloric ulcers, where, yeah, it's probably more to do with the, the internal workings of the horse rather than simple splash ulcers of of of of the squamous region.
And so, so again what we do is we, we, we track it year on year. We know what the likely pattern is for that horse. We know what treatment has worked really well in the past, and then we can actually preempt it and just hit it, hit it on the head early with the right management and other horses that you'd think would, would suffer from it, actually are, are, are really good, but you know, that's one example.
And, and then another would be, you know, if we have a horse that's. You know, if they're gonna be treated at any point, you know, if they're gonna have a joint medicated or something, you know, and you give them an easy week, we, we would always follow, the same pattern of actually, you know, cutting out their feed at a rate that we know means you're gonna. Minimise the risk of them tying up afterwards, but also.
You're, you're not just sticking your finger in the air and taking a guess and finding out that after a week of sort of very light work they've, they've gained quite a lot of weight or, or lost quite a lot of weight. So again, it's just, it's just monitoring what, what we've done in the past with those individual horses and, and being, being able to, to replicate that. And all of this just.
It is for me, it's about learning from the past so that we don't have to reinvent the wheel and you can use, use that knowledge you've gained or or the mistakes you've made to then tweak and think retrospectively I would have done this instead and, and that's your starting point next time and you know, 25 years on you're still tweaking and and altering the model because you're still learning. Yes, definitely. I think, yeah, Cristiana may also comment on this, but I think that that periodization of training and that, you know, building those recovery periods within your, within your show plan and, and, and, and training for the season definitely helps in terms of, especially those horses predisposed to gastric ulcers or tying up, you know, being able to build in that stress management aspect as well.
Yeah, the horses have to be able to absorb the training, don't they? They have to be able to take it on board. And I think often with Harry, he's got them almost ahead of schedule.
So if there is a, a time that we need to back off more than another, then, then he's also confident to know, OK, we can back off this horse prior to travel, or if there's excessive stress, or let's say, You know, the horse feels under the weather or slightly not right, then we can afford to minimise stress or conditioning or galloping during that time, because I think that's what contributes to injury, is if you have to keep the intensity level up, but yet the horse isn't feeling, in good enough condition or 100%, 1, they're not going to be able to absorb the conditioning of fitness, but two, they're going to risk fatigue or injury. So I think the the idea of being able to back off the horses during during periods . When either they're absorbing a higher level of training or they have some unforeseen circumstance come into play is key.
And I think as Harry said, it's, you know, for me it's almost the horse when they're moving from intermediate into the 4-star, 5 star level. We haven't been with them as many years. Those are also the horses sometimes that we have to pay more attention to.
For example, the horses that have been running 5 star for 2 or 3 years, as Harry says, we might know. We have the history with the weights, we have the history with the gastroscopies, knowing which horses are predisposed to gastric ulcers. I guess knowing how they react throughout the time, whereas some of the younger ones come on and you have to develop that same pattern, and I think it's so difficult.
I think we all know now you can't just assess the behaviour or palpate the horse and know which ones are predisposed to gastric ulcers, and So you have to do that routine kind of gastroscopy to learn more and same with monitoring, blood work, you know, maybe we're checking proactively checking muscle enzymes after gallops to know are these horses fluctuating post exercise, not clinical tie-ups, of course, but just more how they're reacting to the increasing conditioning. And again, trying to be proactive so you're not losing time throughout the course of the season. Yeah, absolutely.
And we now move to the, last part of the, of the webinar. So, we've actually titled it Preparing for, preparing for, sorry, and feeding at the big event. So, I guess, Harry, do you want to give us a bit of insight in terms of how, how you go about feeding free during and after, and then we'll look at the, at the nutritional aspect.
Yeah, I, I mean, so I found it really it's interesting because over the years I guess. You You have, particularly having a. You know, a a relatively high number of horses competing at the upper levels, and knowing that.
The the system and and process of, of feeding and fitting the horses and and and preparing them, seems to work in terms of, Having confidence, I, I, I think, I think probably before going into feeding, it's, it's as a competitor, it's having that confidence, you walk into the start box and. You're not sort of hoping the horse is gonna have enough fuel to get to the end and. I, I guess having, having the confidence that they, they should on their preparation, you should be able to have a, a quick round, obviously riding them sensibly, but they, they, they basically shouldn't fatigue to, to the point where they have to slow down, and therefore you can ride with that real confidence, and, and, and that it, it sounds quite basic that, but that as a competitor is a, is a hugely sort of confidence filling.
Sensation and compared to the sort of uncertainty of not quite knowing if the horse is gonna get the trip, and, and that's all interlinked with, with both the, the preparation in the, in, in, in the months building up to it, but also the, the feeding during the event, something that's I, I guess surprised me over the years is how, Like I said, we, we, they go from, they go from really being on quite a lot of food in, in, in the, basically as much feed as they will eat, in, in, in sort of February, March, gen generally it's a January, February, March when they're galloping and they're preparing and, and they're getting fit, but the, the time of year, it, it, it really is sort of lends everything towards them losing condition, so it's trying to keep them. As well conditioned in that time and then in the summer months, you know, and obviously our, our peak times when we talk about periodization of training, it is, you know, the, the, the, the peak, spring three day events, being middle of April being Kentucky, through to the beginning of June being either, either Brahman or Lemoulin with, with badminton in the middle of that window, and, and then again in the autumn ones between end of August and mid October. And and in the run up to those, we find that actually the horses, because we get them fed over a prolonged period of time, they're, they're, and the time of year, their feeding is actually.
Their intake is really quite low in terms of they're still getting plenty of fibre, they're getting a, a, a certain amount of oil, but, but actually very little, in, in, in terms of, cereals added to that. And with, with the feeding then during the event, there is, you know, there's a school of thought that you just keep everything the same, but what, what. And I've, I've had long conversations with, with Margaret about this over the years and, and what, what we do is we actually take their normal, their normal pre-event diet and, and keep that the same, so you've got, you've got on the slide in front of you, you've got the, the week of the event in black and then on the right of it the start of the sort of recovery week after the event.
And, and effectively they they come into the event on their normal, on their normal diet with the exception that they're probably out in the field when they're home overnight and they're coming in and being stable 24 hours a day, but with plenty of grazing in in between exercise. Once they're at the event, but we, we, we then increase their digestible energy and protein as the week progresses, and, and that's done in a way where you don't get, you don't get a sudden step up in that, but, but it is, it, it is, it, it does build quite considerably, so that then on the, the Friday and Saturday, being the day before and day of the cross country day. They're, they're getting really quite, quite a substantial amount really, which I guess is, you know, with the event horse.
Unlike the racehorse, we're, we're, we're looking as much about the recovery for the final day as we are about the performance on the Saturday. But we're obviously looking primarily that we can fuel the horse properly, but also that that recovery is, is sufficient. So that's why that, that, that peak amount of feed, will be sustained Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and that.
I guess minimising the. The legacy of the physical exertion of of the cross country through correct feeding. You know, hopefully helps them to come out on the final day and feel, and I, I always say that, you know, you know, hopefully our horses normally feel like if you had amnesia and you didn't know what they'd done the day before, when you get on them for the cross for, for the show jumping and you're warming up, they'd actually feel no different to if it was a week before the event.
In other words, you haven't got that legacy from the day before, which is, you know, anyone who's run a marathon knows that it's not, it's not that comfortable going for a jog the day after a marathon. And, and that's obviously in, in the feeding, in the run up to and post, post the performance on the Saturday. And again, we, we track all of that so that every 3 day event feed they have for the week, we, we, we don't have to reinvent the wheel, but we can, we can adjust accordingly and we know what, what has worked really well in the past.
Yes, I think this really highlights the importance of the plan working just as well at home as, as, as it will during, during the competition event because there's, there's very little room to make changes that are going to have a substantial impact from a nutritional perspective, even in the, in the, in the days prior to that event. So having It's almost like looking back on that, on that yearly cycle of of the event horse where we started highlighting the fact that we don't want them to lose condition and even though they're actually going to progress through the season where there's also going to be a change in the availability and quality of pasture forage, which is going to again contribute to that. Digestible energy intake, but crucially what we are supporting from a nutritional point of view is those metabolic adaptations to training.
So even though the horse is not consuming substantially more digestible energy or arguably probably the same that they needed through the winter just to maintain body weight and thermoregulate through the winter months, they actually are able to adapt and recover in response to the to the to their progressive training and maintain an adequate energy conversion from, from, from feed sources and forage sources. So really that supporting that digestive system becomes, becomes crucial. So it's not on the slide actually because we've what the slide showcases is the fact that they are macro.
And micronutrient needs pretty much stay the same whether they are leading up to an event, going through an event, or recovering from it, but there's also a very important aspect of digestive support. So all the horses will actually have targeted levels of pre and probiotics in in every feed, and they come, they don't come supplemented. They actually come formulated into the feed because we believe that these are actually.
There is a very substantial evidence base for how they can actually support that energy conversion, and I suppose from again from a diet perspective, as, as Harry has explained, we, we, we ramp up the digestible energy and protein intake in the, in the lead up to the event, and the protein quality is really crucial because again that supply of lysin as the as the first limiting amino acid is going to determine whether that. Muscle actually has the building blocks to repair itself after, after, after effort, but the way that energy is delivered is also tailored to the temperament of the horse, to their age, to how we know they are able to recuperate. Some horses actually will only be able to come back in the, in the, in the through the through cross country or show jumping phases.
With a bit more of a proportion of cereals in their diet because they are going to actually need that to speed to speed up glycogen repletion, whereas actually there are some other horses that are perfectly able to restore their energy stores on a, on a, on a lower starch consumption. We also use electrolytes actually in what we call preloading, so we don't really add them only after. After effort, but they are actually built into the, into the daily routine of the horses because there's also evidence to support their, their beneficial role in, in enhancing glycogen repletion rates within the muscles.
So that's also something, important, and I suppose after the event really it's almost like returning to baseline, and again that baseline will be individual to each horse. But then, we really, we really, again, we just maintained that level of micronutrient supply as well. So this takes us to just just wrapping up really the key messages.
So, we've, we've touched on a lot of these items throughout, throughout today's session, and, and we've, we've really tried to incorporate all of the knowledge that we, we collectively share as a team to, to support the horses and their performance, and, and, and really give you a bit of a, of an. Idea of what goes on in the in the offseason, in the season, as well as when feeding at those multiple day events. We've touched on stress management and the and the importance of really enabling those horses to be settled and as Cristiano was saying, that stress can be an important hindering factor when it comes to absorbing the training, so.
Responding to, to that, to that training demand, but also from a, from a digestive efficiency, we, we know certainly that without even going into the into glandular disease aspect, there is also a significant component of stress when it comes to reducing digestive efficiency. So this is something that we, we certainly, Strive to, to, to support, and I don't know if Christiana or Harry have any comments, to that end. I guess we always do things to minimise stress.
I mean, these are competition horses. They're very aware when we get to badminton or Burleigh that that's where they are. But I think trying to maintain a routine like Harry's horses are out grazing as much as is possible.
They have the frequency of feeding and a high forage diet already, so we're doing everything we can to minimise stress effects on those horses. But that being said, they are at a big competition and they're aware of that. So I you know, even if at times we have to use, you know, things to help us like omeprazole or like misoprostol during times of peak stress, I think most of it's in knowing what stressors affect a particular horse and trying to minimise that when they're at the competition, and also discussing with the groom and with the rider how travel, how that's.
Going to look like, you know, is the horse on a long lorry ride? Is the horse flying to a competition? Is there going to be a change of nutrition because of that travel, and trying to have a plan in place prior, prior to the actual event, so that we can kind of address all those questions and not be taken by surprise, because I think the biggest thing that can create more stress for the horse is, probably the unknowns and also for the rider.
Yeah, and I, I think, sometimes it's the simple things like I try and whenever we're travelling. By road, I try and not go more than 4.5 hours without stopping and getting the horses off.
It's something that I think in this country we're quite poor at. I think if you grow up in the States or in Australia where you've got big, big, Big country, you know, people are much, more knowledgeable about that, whereas there's, there's, I think, a, a, a slight unawareness, as much as really about travel sickness as, as anything is, is to get the horses' heads down, you know, we, we try and get the horses off. We can do it all quite slickly, so we, we, we, we have, I have a load of stars, dropped, on green patches across Europe and either side of most ferry crossings and.
In Ireland where we, we, we just, we, you know, we know it's a good place to just drop the ramp, get the horses off, we, we give them a graze, they'll have a roll, they'll have a, a, a, a, a light feed and, and, and some water and go back on, and, and that kind of thing can make it easy. But also, like Cristiano was saying, it's, it's sometimes it's small things, you know, it might be as simple when you're at a competition as having, if you've got a horse, it gets stressed on its own, having someone on a bike who's, you know, when you take it for a hack, you know, they act like a little horse that's coming with you, so the horse doesn't feel. Abandoned on their own, and particularly if you're flying a horse, to the states and then you know they've been in quarantine and they've had quite a few days of doing nothing and then they arrive at the competition and suddenly they, they see the flags and you know they get quite excited actually having either another horse to go with or, or a person on a bike mimicking another horse, it can just, all of that kind of thing can just help them stay settled and feel like they're in their normal routine.
Thank you, thanks Harry, thanks Christina. That brings us to the end of the webinar, so I don't know if we have any questions from, from the audience. Yes, we do, yeah, thank you very much for that guys, that was really, very interesting talk.
So yeah, we have a few questions, we've got about 5 minutes to cover some of these off. So, first question, which is from Abbe, this is for, Christiana. So, do you see a role for wearable tech within event horses, so things like biometric kit, monitoring, monitoring stride length, movement, etc.
Yeah, I think it's, it's obviously becoming much more fine-tuned, and I think it's being used a lot more. So I think it's, it's, it's going to become more prevalent, and I think it's probably going to be most useful after you're collecting the data. So whether that's heart rate, being able to monitor a change in your horse's heart rate that could indicate early injury.
And having the riders start to accumulate that data so we know what's normal for the particular horse. So I guess in essence, yes, and I think each yard will integrate it differently. And I think, as the technology Improves.
Probably we're going to see the advent of that in the next 12 months explode and be utilised more day to day in, in all all yachts. So yes, I guess that's the long and short of it. Great, thank you.
That question segues nicely into a question for Harry actually. So, Harry, you talked a lot about data during the middle of the presentation there, you seem to be collecting a lot of data from your horses on, on yard. Obviously you've had quite a lot of years managing, horses at top of sport, so how do you balance those data decisions with your own intuition?
Yeah, I, I think that's a really good question. I, I, I think, well, I mean, and it follows on nicely because I, I think the, the collection of data. It's great if it's meaningful data and it's quite easy to, I mean I get approached quite a lot by people who've developed technologies and, and, and things where you can collect different data and, and sometimes you could, I mean you could end up collecting just so much data that actually you, you're, you're never gonna use, so it's, it's, it's trying to work out what is usable and what what the end objective is, but, but ultimately I think combining that with, Trying to, trying to marry in quite a satisfactory way, .
Feel And Experience and gut instinct with. A scientific approach of, of the collection of data because the two go hand in hand and, and like I said earlier on when I was talking about the, the weighing of horses, all it does is gives you a number, so it doesn't actually tell you. What to do or how to do it, but, but it's trying to, I guess quantify your, your gut feel, so when some, when you, when you feel that something is, is right, and you from experience know that it's been really successful, you can actually look in an objective way at the numbers that, I, I, I guess acted as ingredients to that, and then that, that is a good yardstick for, for future years, or, or, or, or future competitions or future horses or whichever way you want to use it.
So I think it's very much a combination of the two, and it it doesn't in any way rule out that that instinct. I'd say it's the way I like to put it is it's a way of bottling the instincts, you know, that you get the experience, you get the feel. But how can you bottle that to use it for next year, and, and this is one way of doing that.
OK, fabulous. Question for Margot, this is from Libby, so what would you say is the best source of vitamin E for an event horse, either natural or artificial? Yes, so the best source, I suppose, it depends what for.
So regardless of whether this is an event course or not, if you are supplementing a horse with a vitamin E deficiency, then certainly a natural form will be. The best course of action and you're going to be looking at supplementing to the order of 5000 international units per day for at least three months in order to correct that deficiency because the natural form is better absorbed and that will be a sure way to do that. That being said, we know that vitamin E is a fat soluble vitamin, so I don't think there is any feed manufacturer that can afford a natural form to be used in their feeds, so you will most likely find synthetic forms in horse feeds, but there is ample evidence to support that if synthetic forms are supplemented to the order of 1500 to 2500 international units per day delivered in feed in synthetic form, they are actually supportive of the natural antioxidant process in the body and they make it actually quite hard for the horse to become deficient in vitamin E in the first place.
So I would say, yeah, if you, if if the horse is consuming the synthetic form in those quantities every day, then that's that's perfect. OK, great. Er and one more question before we wrap up cos we're we're out of time, so this is for Christiana.
What are the most important factors when it comes to building a sustainable training programme to support injury prevention? I guess like what we talked about earlier, knowing that horse as an individual and paying attention to subtle differences. So I think that the best way is going to be know that horse, detect areas of weakness that can be corrected to make the horse overall stronger, to be able to adapt to training, and really recognise the, the subtle differences as the horse goes through, different intensities of training and react, early enough, so not waiting until there's necessarily a lameness or a performance limiting problem, but maybe just address, address it when there are early subclinical signs.
Excellent, thank you. OK, so I, I think we'll have to wrap up there, so thank you everybody for watching at home. If there's anything you want to cover again, anything you might have missed, then the recording of this webinar should be available within the next 24 hours, as well as your CPD certificates, which will be winging their way to you as well.
So thank you once again to the three of you, Harry, Margot and Christiana for delivering such a wonderful talk, that was very interesting. And also thank you to our sponsor as well, DNH, for bringing this talk to us tonight. So have a good rest of the day wherever you are, and we'll see you next time.
