Common causes of weight loss in Off track thoroughbreds

Learn about some common causes of weight loss in off-the-track Thoroughbreds (OTTBs) in this excerpt from the book Beyond the Track.

Insufficient calories: If a horse is not receiving enough calories via a combination of roughage and grain, he will lose weight, especially as his "race-fit" muscling disappears. Over the years at New Vocations, I have found that insufficient feed is the number one cause of weight loss in adopted horses.

Parasite infestation: Horses should be dewormed every 60 to 90 days, and at the track, Thoroughbreds are on a schedule to ensure this. While you should request information regarding the horse's last deworming when you buy or adopt him, it may not be available. As a precaution, it is always good to deworm a new horse to help avoid problems with condition as you begin retraining.

Heat: In a hot climate, or during the very warm seasons, a horse that spends long periods in direct sun will burn more calories than a horse that is in a stall, run-in shelter, or in the shade. If your horse is turned out all the time, it is important to provide him a means of shelter and shade. Inside a barn, fans can be positioned to help cool hot horses.

Cold: In regions that experience extreme cold temperatures, or during bouts of cold weather, a horse that is turned out with no shelter to protect him from wind, snow, and rain, will burn extra calories as he tries to stay warm, especially if he's wet. As in areas that experience severe heat, it is necessary to provide adequate cover from the weather. In addition, horses with thinner winter coats or those in the coldest climates may benefit from a blanket or rug.

Fighting insects: Thoroughbreds hateinsects. They tend to be thin-skinned and especially sensitive to biting flies and mosquitoes, so expect the weight to "melt" off your horse if he spends too much time fighting the bugs--inside as well as out. There are a variety of products available, including sprays, wipes, masks, and sheets, that can help keep your horse comfortable. And, scheduling turnout for the least buggy time of day is recommended.

Pacing the fence: Running back and forth along the fence line obviously contributes to weight loss. This can be due to initial anxiety about being turned out, boredom, horses in neighboring paddocks, or a lack of company in one's own. I explain how to avoid or deal with this problem further in Beyond the Track.

Sickness: One indication of illness or disease is weight loss. Illness also weakens the horse's defenses against sudden changes in weather and parasite infestation, which contributes to the problem. If a horse is in poor condition and seems depressed, off his feed, or otherwise unwell, have your veterinarian examine him to rule out an underlying problem.

Teeth: Horses may have difficulty chewing and consequently digesting their food if teeth are sharp or in poor alignment. Watch the horse eat and note if he drops a lot of food out of his mouth while he chews. Other indicators of mouth discomfort can include issues with the bit, head-tossing, or poor behavior. A veterinarian or equine dentist can check your horse's teeth and "float" them--file down sharp and rough edges that may be causing problems.

By Anna Morgan Ford

Tips for Ex-Racehorse Shopping Online

Buying or adopting an ex-racehorse off the Internet can look almost as easy (and just as tempting) as shopping online for a new pair of breeches. But, although candidates are offered at tempting prices--typically $1000 to $5000--the process is neither as easy nor as inexpensive as it first appears.

Are You Ready for a Racehorse?
"Horses coming straight off the track are not for first-time owners or beginning riders," says Jo Anne Normile, founder of CANTER, a nonprofit organization that posts Net listings for Thoroughbreds in 11 states. "These young horses have seen and heard everything but they don't know 'whoa' and they don't know how to make a figure-eight with a rider on their backs."

Most of the horses available through such sites have only had race training. That means they...

• usually don't stand still for mounting. Jockeys and exercise riders are boosted into the saddle at a walk.
• are taught to be competitive. To them, riding in a group means galloping at 38 mph and trying to get in front of everyone else. Until a racehorse has been fully retrained (a process that usually takes at least six months), he's likely to be excitable in group situations.
• are taught to lean on the bit when they run--and understand pulling on the reins to mean "go faster."
• aren't taught to stop or turn quickly. At the track, fast stops at high speed make for injuries.
• have raced to the left--and so are probably unbalanced to the right, particularly in small circles.
• are largely unfamiliar with leg aids. (Jockeys' knees are up by the withers.)

A racehorse just off the track will probably need three months or more to back off from extreme fitness and readjust his system from the high-energy grain regimen (plus any drugs he may have been on). Normal non-racing barn routine and daily turnout will be new experiences that need to be introduced gradually.

Additional challenges will be the mechanics of looking at and trying out horses in the track environment and, if you decide to buy a horse there, dealing with soundness issues typical of ex-racehorses.

Where to Look
Still interested? There are a number of Web sites specializing in ex-racehorse sales and adoptions, and they are not all the same. For example, you'll find:

• For-profit sites, such as Mix 'n Match, that arrange meetings between buyers and sellers and take a commission on sales. They may offer prospects still on the track and others that have come off the track and have already started retaining. (Usually the off-the-track horses can be ridden.)
• Nonprofit sites such as CANTER, which give trainers a forum to advertise their stock. Most horses listed are still at the track, but trainers may advertise horses "on the farm"; the site itself has for resale "on-the-farm" horses that were donated to it for fundraising.
• Nonprofit sites that accept donated (in many cases injured) horses from owners and trainers for "adoption" to new homes. Adoption sites usually charge a fee-typically between $500 and $2500-per horse; many require adopters to sign a contract restricting future use and sale of the horse. Examples include ReRun, United Pegasus Foundation and the American Standardbred Adoption Program.

A safe and successful eventing season starts in the barn

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By Jim Wofford

You don’t need to be riding to improve your chances of success in the coming season, Jim explains.

January is the time of year when you can take care of things you don’t have time to take care of the rest of the year. Your horse is just coming back into work, or maybe you’re riding less because of bad weather, so your ability to practice shoulder-in or jumping related distances is limited. However, there are several things you can do now that will make the coming season enjoyable and, more importantly, safer for both you and your horse. The details I have in mind are not directly involved with your ability to sit the trot, but you will sit the trot with a great deal more peace of mind if you have taken care of some, or all, of the following suggestions.

Inspect Your Trailer
Your horse is your best friend, especially when he is thundering down to something that is bigger than anything you have ever seen before and it is cemented in the ground. Don’t you think that he deserves a safe and comfortable conveyance when you are hauling him around to lessons and competitions?

Somewhere in that pile of old mail on your desk is the owner’s manual that came with your gooseneck. Find it and open it to the page marked “Maintenance.” Read it. Do it.

Before you take your trailer in for service, look closely at the interior.

Have any sharp metal edges suddenly ­appeared? Are any of the partitions bent or out of alignment? Is there anything else in your horse’s traveling space that might pose a hazard to him? If so, now is the time to take care of it.

If you have had your trailer for several years and you have been at least normally active, it might be time to replace your tires. If you do not use your trailer on a regular basis, yet have been plagued by
a series of flat tires, you may need to ­replace your tires due to dry rot rather than loss of tread. Each of your trailer tires rotates with the help of mysterious creatures called “bearings.” All you need to know about bearings is that they require care on a regular basis from someone who knows far more about machinery than you and I.

What about your brakes? They need regular service, and your maintenance guidelines will tell you what is needed and how to go about it.

While your trailer is in the shop for its annual rehab, make sure that all of its brake lights, backup lights and running lights are operational. You will need this to pass your state inspection, but you want to take care of these details based solely on your desire to have the safest possible environment for your four-legged friend.

If your trailer is of a certain age, lift the floor mats and make sure that the flooring itself is safe. Some older trailers have wood floors, which have a distressing tendency to rot over time, starting at the back end. However, metal floors can also corrode and deteriorate, and they need to be checked.

While your trailer is in for service, make sure that the hitch apparatus is greased, adjusted and maintained. In addition, if you have been towing your trailer with the same ball hitch on your truck for a long time, have your mechanic check that the ball has not shrunk. It’s a long shot, but the ball can become so worn that the trailer hitch pops off—and it’s preventable.

If you take care of everything we have just talked about, it will cost you a little money. But it is a small investment in your peace of mind about your horse’s well-being, and it is a very small down payment on the vet bills you could incur if you don’t take care of maintenance.

Inspect Your Tack
You also need the month of January to conduct a rigorous safety examination of all your riding equipment.

Start with the bit itself. If it is a loose-ring snaffle, is it starting to show signs of wear where the ring goes through the bit? Are there tiny cracks appearing in the metal? Is there a flat worn spot visible in the ring? Any of these can be a sign that your bit is about to break. You will probably train in perfect safety all spring, yet it will come undone on you halfway around the season’s first cross-country course because that’s the way these things work. However, a little attention during the winter months can prevent a dangerous situation from occurring.

Look at the rest of your bridle. Are the cheekpieces worn? Is it time to replace the keepers because they have stretched out so much that they will no longer “keep” the cheekpiece straps? (That’s a pet peeve of mine because a horse whose bridle lacks effective keepers looks like a hedgehog coming at you.)

Then move your inspection to your reins: If the leather part that wraps around the bit is beginning to show a groove, it is time to replace them. Undo the reins from the bit and inspect the ­internal stitching next to the hook stud or buckle that fastens the rein around the bit. The stitching should still be complete, and the hook stud or buckle itself should still be solidly fixed on the inside of the rein. If you have difficulty getting your reins off the bit, that means your tack maintenance program is badly in arrears and now is the time to fix it. Neatsfoot oil is cheaper than a visit to your local tack-repair shop. In my tack room,

I have several of my father’s bridles. Some of the leather is 75 years old, yet it is supple and the leather glows ­because it has received regular attention.

Working back along the reins, if you use rubber reins, be sure that the rubber hand grips have not started to separate or fray. A skillful tack-repair service can replace them, which is cheaper than a new pair of reins. This should only be done once because of the extra stitching involved, which will weaken the reins with repetition.

Inspect all of the leather parts of your reins for cracks and gouges. In case of doubt, get your tack-repair person to give you an opinion. If you’re still in doubt, then it is time to invest in a new piece of equipment, because you would rather be safe than sorry.

If you are not riding much during the winter, have your saddle’s panels restuffed. While you are at it, repair and replace the billet straps as needed and certainly, if your saddle is an older model, make sure that the material to which your billet straps are stitched is sound and in good repair.

Although a stitch in time saves nine, nine stitches in your stirrup leather buckle might mean the difference between a successful season and a long time spent on crutches wishing you could ride. The stitching at the buckle end of the stirrup leather is the tack area that I most commonly find in disrepair at lessons.

Check Your Horse 
While your horse is not in serious exercise, schedule his annual physical checkup, which should be a complete workup. Unless your regular veterinarian is unusually gifted, this annual checkup should involve a trip to the nearest veterinary school or equine diagnostic clinic.

What should a complete workup ­include? More than the obvious. It is a given that an examination will include the horse’s eyes, lung function and heart as well as external blemishes and superficial injuries or old injury sites. However, you should request flexions on all four limbs, and X-rays should be taken following any positive reaction to a flexion test. Chances are that the reaction is something minor, but you will feel better starting your next training period if you know that you have a minor condition that will be improved, rather than worsened, by exercise.

While you are at it, the clinic team should provide you with a written critique of your horse’s feet and his shoeing with suggestions for improvement. (On your return, be sure you go over this carefully with your farrier. If he is ­resistant to expert advice offered in a constructive fashion, then you need a new farrier.)

Your horse’s annual examination should also include a wide spectrum of blood work. This will tell you a great deal about the state of his health, including any mild form of anemia, the effectiveness of your deworming program and the presence of any lingering low-grade systemic infections. These days, you also need tests for any diseases such as EPM or Lyme that are prevalent in your area. As part of these blood tests, remember to obtain a new Coggins test. Ask the clinic staff to keep you apprised of any new transport requirements—for instance, whether your state now requires a six-month current Coggins, rather than one year. And so on.

If you are competing in FEI events, be sure to bring your horse’s passport to the clinic and make sure it is up to date in every aspect—especially regarding the required flu shots. Also remember that old wounds can heal with white hair rather than hair of his overall coat color. The passport must be changed to reflect this in order to ­remain current.

While your horse is at the clinic, be sure to bring a label from his feed bag and get advice about his nutrition.

Update Your Info
What are some other things you can do during the winter that will make your warm-weather experience more enjoyable? Go online and make sure that US Equestrian Federation and all the other affiliate organizations to which you ­belong have correct information in their user-profile database for both you and your horse. One reason to be sure now that the ­information in the database is correct is that more and more competitions are accepting online entries. If your information is out of date or ­incorrect, you run the risk of the competition’s computer rejecting your entry. Check to make sure everything is correct now to avoid being placed on the waiting list rather than having your ­entry accepted.

Make several copies of all of your membership numbers and of your horse’s registration numbers and competitive records and stash them in various places: your brief case, your vehicle’s glove box, your tack trunk … so you can access them should a competition not be able to find the required information.

If you have not yet joined the various organizations for the coming year, make sure to do it now.

Continue Your Education
Finally, in case you haven’t looked outside yet, it’s still winter. It gets dark early and there’s not much going on. So—read a book. As a matter of fact, I want you to read three books over the next three months. Read one on dressage, one about stadium jumping and one of your choice. Obviously I think my own books have something to offer to you, and you can read my extended reading list here. ­However, a good place for you to start would be with Wilhelm Müseler’s Riding Logic for your dressage book. (Herr Müseler includes some advice about show-jumping in the back of Riding ­Logic—­ignore it.) If you have not read Bertalan de Némethy’s classic Show Jumping: The de Némethy Method, then do so.

For your third book, I prefer you choose one that discusses technique and training rather than one that is ­autobiographical in nature. There are many autobiographical books out there based on the writers’ horse exploits, and they are fascinating and fun to read, but they usually do not increase your knowledge of how to ride and train the way books specifically written for that purpose do.
Anyone with a full-time job will tell you that continuing professional education is a necessity in the modern business world. To continue to improve and succeed in the horse world, you must take the same diligent, disciplined attitude toward continuing education about riding and training as you do toward your professional career.

If you take care of all of these details, I am sure your horse will take better care of you and you will have a safe and enjoyable season.

Managing Carbohydrates in Your Horse’s Diet

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By Bill Vandergrift PhD with Elaine Pascoe

Learn how to maximize your sporthorse’s performance by managing his carbohydrate intake


Grain and forage meet your horse's energy needs by supplying a variety of carbohydrates. Understanding how your horse processes and puts them to use can help you make smart feed choices. The different kinds of carbs can be classified in several ways--by their roles in plant tissue, by the way they're digested by the horse and by the way they’re analyzed in the lab. Here are some important types:

Structural carbohydrates, such as cellulose and hemicellulose, make up the stiff, supportive cell walls of plants. They provide fiber, much of which is fermented by microorganisms in the horse's hindgut. (The term "crude fiber," used on feed labels, refers to structural carbohydrates.) Fiber is essential for the horse's gut health, and it's an important source of energy.

Soluble fibers are fermented more rapidly than structural carbohydrates. They include pectin, a component of plant cell walls that is converted into fatty acids in the hindgut. Beet pulp and soy hulls have high levels of pectin.

Nonstructural carbohydrates are the sugars and starches stored inside plant cells. They include simple sugars (glucose and fructose) and complex polysaccharides, such as starch and fructans, which form when molecules of simple sugars link up.

Starches are the main nonstructural carbohydrates in grains, legumes like alfalfa, and warm-season grasses, such as coastal Bermuda grass. Various grains contain different types of starch, some (oats, sorghum, corn) more easily digested by horses than others. Starches are broken down into sucrose and fructose and absorbed in the horse’s small intestine. If a horse consumes more starch than his small intestine can handle at one sitting, the excess spills over to the hindgut--causing a population explosion of microbes that ferment sugar and starch and setting off a cascade of events that can lead to colic or laminitis.

Fructans, which are made up mainly of fructose, are the major nonstructural carbohydrates in cool-season grasses such as orchardgrass, fescue and timothy. Fructans are not absorbed in the small intestine; instead, microorganisms in the hindgut ferment them into lactic acid. In susceptible horses, an overload of fructans may set off a cascade of events like the one that leads to grain-induced laminitis.

For horses with histories of diet-related laminitis, insulin resistance or PSSM, limiting nonstructural carbohydrate levels in feed and forage is essential. Most feed labels don't provide this data or much other information about carbs, however, and the only way find out what's in pasture and hay is to have it analyzed. Labs that do this work, such as Equi-analytical Laboratories in Ithaca, New York, use specialized tests and terms to distinguish carbohydrate fractions. For example:

• Water-soluble carbohydrates are those that can be extracted in water. They include simple sugars, sucrose and fructans.
• Ethanol-soluble carbohydrates, extracted in ethanol, are mainly simple sugars and sucrose--so a lab can determine the fructan content of forage by subtracting ethanol-soluble carbohydrates from water-soluble carbohydrates.
• Neutral detergent fiber is a measure of three structural carbs--hemicellulose, cellulose and lignin, which is not digested.
• Acid detergent fiber is a measure of cellulose and lignin; as ADF increases, overall digestibility of the forage decreases