By Suzie Middlebrook, B.Sc, Cavalor Nutrition Specialist

As veterinary medicine technologies continue to improve, we are seeing more and more horses entering their twenties and still competing alongside their younger counterparts. Despite their robust appearance, though, these horses often still need additional support to continue their active lives. It is imperative that these senior horses are checked daily and any changes in condition are noted in order to make adjustments to these horses’ routines before a problem arises.

One of the more common questions we receive from owners of aged competition horses is, “when do I start feeding a senior feed?” These long-time partners and schoolmasters are often in 5-6 day a week work and still competing at quite a high level of sport in their late teens and early twenties without showing any resemblance to the grayed, out-to-pasture senior horses often depicted on the bags of senior horse feeds. While some of these horses do best maintaining their more performance-centric feeding regime, older horses that are beginning to show signs of aging, such as loss of muscle or reduced coat quality, may benefit from switching to a high quality senior feed. If the horse is beginning to retain their winter coat into the late spring and summer months, it is time to switch them onto a senior feed.

Senior feeds should be highly palatable, easily digestible, high in good quality protein, and low in starches and sugars. Cavalor® Strucomix Senior was designed specifically to have all these characteristics in order to best support the older horse whether they are in work or not.

One of the trickiest aspects of managing older horses is their weight, both overall and in muscle. Generally, these horses seem to fluctuate from an ideal weight in either direction more easily. While some seniors lose a significant amount of weight in the winter months, they often seem to become obese once the spring grass comes in. While an owner may be relieved that their horse recouped the weight so quickly, these large fluctuations in body condition are very taxing on the horse’s systems, particularly for bone and metabolic health. Instead, an owner should be proactive and begin adjusting the horse’s routine in the month or two before the horse begins to edge to either extreme by either increasing grain ration or buying a muzzle. Crash diets and grain binges are both very hard on the older horse and should be avoided.

To maintain muscle, one of the best things to do is to prevent muscle loss through lack of work or nutritional support. While a young horse will greatly benefit from some time out in the field after a taxing competition season, an older horse may do better in a resting program where they are lightly maintained, such as regular hill work at the walk or some low-level dressage work. Incorporating Cavalor® Muscle Force, a muscle
building product, into the diet will also help prevent the loss of existing muscle.

There are other characteristics of the older horse one should regularly observe to best support them as they age. The first is dental health. If the older horse begins quidding (a behavior where the horse balls up feed in its cheeks while eating), then a professional should be sought to address this issue. That being said, while a horse’s teeth continue to grow throughout their lives, the rate of growth slows down considerably when the horse is a teenager. While it is easy enough to address some dental issues in a younger horse, such as a wave in the molars, an equine dental professional must be more conservative when addressing these issues in the older horse since the teeth grow so much more slowly. At a certain point, what is present is essentially what the horse will have for the rest of their life. Any large corrections done at that point may very well reduce the horse’s quality and length of life considerably. The best way to avoid this is by regular yearly upkeep of your horse’s teeth on an annual basis throughout their lives.

A second key trait to watch for in the older horse is hoof quality. Often times, any horizontal ridges generally indicate some disturbance in the microbiological health in the hindgut, which may be a precursor to a laminitic episode. In addition to minimizing the impact though feed and hay changes by altering the diet slowing, some additional support for the hindgut in the form of pre- and probiotics, like those found in Cavalor® Vitaflor 365, may be very helpful.