By Kentucky Equine Research Staff

A new tool, called the body condition index (BCI), provides more consistent and repeatable measures of percent body fat than traditional body condition scoring (BCS). The BCI seems particularly suited to all horse owners, even inexperienced ones.

Currently, BCS is a widely recommended tool for assessing body fat (adiposity) in horses. The Henneke scale, one of the most widely used BCS systems, ranges from 1 to 9, with horses in moderate body condition designated a score of 5. Other BCS systems use a 0-5 scale.

“Body condition scoring is subjective, which means individuals assessing the same horse may assign different scores. Most evaluators correctly identify underweight horses, but differences are observed more frequently when assessing overweight or obese horses,” explained Catherine Whitehouse, M.S., a nutrition advisor for Kentucky Equine Research.

She added, “Owners may also be reluctant to admit their horse is overweight or in a state of positive energy balance. They then assign a lower BCS to fit into the generally accepted healthy range of 5 to 6.”

Further, studies reported that many horse owners find the BCS system too technical and have only a fair ability to judge BCS even after being given instructions.

“Considering how important it is for horses to maintain optimal body condition, reliable and accurate measures of adiposity are needed,” Whitehouse said.

Using mathematical methods and morphometric measurements, researchers developed a formula that correlates to percent body fat.* They called this the body condition index, which is based on measuring heart girth, belly girth, neck circumference, height, and body length.

In other words, the BCI measures the horse’s body circumference based on simple readings from a tape measure. This is in stark contrast to relying on vision or palpation when measuring BCS, which are highly subjective.

After developing the BCI, it was then applied to large numbers of horses and ponies by both trained and inexperienced evaluators and compared to the BCS.

The main finding was that the variability of these measurements by inexperienced assessors was higher (14%) for the BCS than the BCI (11%). This means that the BCI, as an objective measure of percent body fat, should be more consistent and reproducible when performed by horse owners.

“Having a more accurate assessment of adiposity is doubly important when we consider that many owners already underestimate their horses’ body condition and that subtle changes in condition over time can be challenging to identify,” Whitehouse said.

In sum, the researchers concluded that the BCI was more consistent and reliable than BCS, particularly for the inexperienced evaluators who were final-year veterinary students and therefore considered to have comparable skill to horse owners. “Using a BCI may be more beneficial and sensitive than BCS for tracking weight gain or weight loss,” relayed Whitehouse.

Recognizing that a horse is overweight will allow management strategies to be put in place to avoid obesity-related diseases such as equine metabolic syndrome, insulin dysregulation, and hyperinsulinemia-associated laminitis.

“The key to weight loss involves reducing caloric intake while providing a complete and balanced diet. Unrestricted pasture access is usually the main reason for weight gain, followed by high-calorie forages and feeds oversupplying calories based on the horse’s life stage or workload,” Whitehouse said. “Increasing exercise in sound horses in tandem with dietary changes can also induce weight loss.”

Whitehouse added, “Effective weight-loss programs combine strict dietary management with exercise, often utilizing a highly concentrated vitamin and mineral supplement to deliver key nutrients to support health and wellness in a low-calorie form.”

Check out Body Condition Resources for more information on weight management and body condition scoring.

Read more: Body Condition Index: New Tool for Objectively Assessing Body Fat in Horses

The five amazing gaits of the Icelandic horse, including "tölt" and flying pace.

The horses of Iceland are a so-called gaited horse breed. This means that most Icelandic horses have two extra gaits to offer besides walk, trot and canter/gallop. All horse breeds have these three natural gaits and can perform them without training. The extra gaits that set the Icelandic horse apart from other breeds are called tölt and flying pace. The extra gaits are natural and new-born foals frequently show them right from the start.

TÖLT
Tölt is the unique four-beat lateral gait, that the breed is best known for. The horse’s hind legs should move well under the body and carry more of the weight on the hind end, allowing the front to rise and be free and loose. Tölt is very smooth to ride since there is no suspension between strides, as is the case in trot or canter, and it can be ridden very slowly up to a very fast speed, depending on the horse.

FLYING PACE
The flying pace is the “fifth gear”, offering a two-beat lateral movement with suspension. This gait is ridden very fast, even used for racing and only for short distances, 100-200 metres usually. Not all Icelandic horses can pace, but those that manage all five gaits well are considered the best of the breed.

Read more: 5 Gaits of the Icelandic Horse (2:24)

A letter from Juliet M. Getty, Ph.D.

The issue is still free choice forage feeding.

I respect and honor the way horses are made—they are different—unique, really. In a suitable, native environment, they are quite capable of taking care of themselves. They are free to eat and roam and, well, be horses. Domestication involves removing them from their natural setting, but their instincts for survival remain unchanged, and those instincts are based on compelling physiological and mental needs. Make no mistake about this: when we ignore or deny those needs, we seriously imperil our horses.

I have very deep convictions on respecting a horse’s instincts. Common horse care practices often suppress a horse’s instinctive behaviors, forcing the horse to compromise both physiologically and psychologically. Such compromises are innately stressful, and lead to life-threatening problems like ulcers and laminitis, and undesirable—even dangerous—behaviors.

Frequently, I caution against the stress of forage restriction. Some have said that the alternative I am describing—free choice forage feeding—appears to be a road to increased obesity and an increased risk of laminitis. But they are grossly mistaken.

When we see images of wild horses running free, we all experience the hush, the chill, and the awe of their power and majesty. That is Nature at her best – allowing these incredible animals to live as they are intended. Why is it that we don’t see our own domesticated horses in the same way? Why is it that we think we can confine them to a small area for hours at a time, give them a few “square meals” each day and expect them to be right, physically and mentally? Are they not the same horse species that long ago lived a different life?

It’s been said that our horses have become different – that horses living in the wild don’t suffer from the ravages of insulin resistance, the main cause of laminitis. Yes, it’s partly true -- we don’t see laminitis when horses are free to feed themselves. But we do see insulin resistance, and that’s actually a blessing in the wild. Insulin resistance is the body’s way of avoiding starvation. During a harsh winter, when the food supply is sparse, horses will hold on to body fat to help them survive. They do this by having an elevated blood insulin level. When insulin is high, the cells cannot release fat. This is a survival mechanism.

We duplicate this when we restrict forage. The horse responds the same way – he is in survival mode! And he holds on to body fat.

Anything that causes insulin to rise will keep a horse fat. Hundreds of studies with humans confirm the connection between elevated insulin and obesity. Stress causes obesity in humans. Why? Because cortisol (a stress hormone) causes insulin to rise. At the cellular level, the same is true for horses. We have equine studies to show how insulin rises during stress. So why isn’t this being extrapolated to obesity in horses?

Perhaps it’s because it doesn’t seem to make sense that eating more causes weight loss. It’s not the amount eaten but the type of food eaten that has the most impact. And we also know that starving oneself will result in weight loss (mostly muscle loss) but will slow down the metabolic rate so dramatically, that the weight comes back on with far fewer calories than it originally took to maintain one’s weight. Yet the horse-related studies we choose to follow involve starving the horse to get him to lose weight. Which, of course, he does. And we celebrate. The conventional advice appears to work: Give the horse hay equal to 1.5% of his body weight, keep him in confined small space much of the day so he cannot graze, and he loses weight! And if he doesn’t, reduce the amount of hay to 1%! The idiom, “not seeing the forest for the trees,” comes to mind. What is the big picture? What are you left with? A horse with less muscle mass, stressed to the max, with a sluggish metabolism so he will never live a normal life of grazing on pasture again. Never.

We have forced our horses to abandon their instincts.

They no longer get the inner signal that tells them to stop eating. To help you appreciate this, I’d like you to think about your childhood. When you were a toddler, you ate what you needed, and when you were no longer hungry, you stopped eating. Yes, you were coddled to finish your green beans, or no dessert! So you ate more to get that reward. But your instincts (yes, you had them back then) were to eat only what your body required. As you grew, you discovered that eating has more rewards than just getting dessert; eating is comforting, it cures stress, boredom, or disappointment, and is just plain fun! You likely don’t eat only when you’re hungry; you eat whenever you gather with friends or celebrate a special occasion. And guess what? Now that you’re grown, those instincts to eat only what your body needs have long faded.

Horses are a different story. They do not succumb to the pressures of society to influence their appetites. But when they are forced to eat on our schedules, they quickly become out of touch with that innate ability to eat slowly, a little at a time, and stop when satisfied. Instead, they eat quickly, ravenously, with barely a breath in between each bite, because they do not know when their next meal will be available. When it gets close to feeding time they pace, bob their heads, paw the ground, and make strange noises. This is not normal; it is a result of what we have done to our horses. We, well-meaning horse owners and caregivers, are putting our horses into survival mode!

Horses are unlike humans in one very significant way.

Their digestive tract is not the same as ours. The biology that drives the horse’s digestion is indisputable: The horse’s stomach produces acid continuously, necessitating the action of chewing to release acid-neutralizing saliva. The digestive tract is made of muscles and needs to be exercised to prevent colic by having a steady flow of forage running through it. The cecum (the hindgut where forage is digested by billions of microbes) has both its entrance and exit at the top, thereby requiring it to be full so material can exit, lest it become impacted.

I appeal to you to look at this logically.

You should not put your horse in a dry lot or a stall with no hay. You should test your hay, make sure it is suitable for the horse (low in sugar, starch, and calories). If testing is impossible, then soak it to remove a significant amount of sugar and starch. Put it everywhere you can, encouraging your horse to take more steps to get the next bite. Use slow feeders if you like. And think of ways to foster movement. Exercise, even a small amount, will make a difference. A larger amount will make a bigger difference.

When a horse loses weight the right way, his metabolic rate stays sound and he will be able to graze on pasture again. Perhaps you will have to limit it a bit, but maybe not. Some supplements may be helpful. I have seen hundreds of cases over the years where horses have returned to a normal life – healthy, full of vigor, with no grass restrictions.

Let your horse tell you how much he needs to eat.

Read more: Respect the Power of the Horse's Instincts

Dr. Peter Morresey and Dr. Bart Barber revisit an early episode (#9) with veterinary podiatry pioneer, Dr. Scott Morrison. Learn about the advancement of equine podiatry and the creation of the Rood & Riddle podiatry department. Dr. Morrison touches on the devastating disease laminitis and what treatments have been developed to help horses try to overcome this dreaded condition.

Read more: Rood & Riddle Stallside Podcast - Pioneering Equine Podiatry with Dr Scott Morrison (38:49)

By Sue Grice

Although the traditional pyramid concept of the Scales of Training clearly has a place within equestrianism, it is my contention that it does not provide the most helpful framework for applying the elements of the Scales. I would like to propose a different model—a Training Spiral.

Before going any further, consider for a moment what the word ”scale” actually means. It has various meanings in the English language, including:

• A set of marks or numbers used to measure the size or level of something.
• The relation between the real size of something and its size on a map or model.
• The relative level or extent of something. A machine or device for weighing people or things.
• A set of musical notes played in ascending or descending order.
• To climb something steep, such as a mountain or ladder.

While some of these meanings may appear irrelevant to training horses, all are worth a little thought. Most obviously, the idea of “scaling” something steep via a series of steps fits well with the pyramid structure many of us are familiar with. The notion of a scale as a means of measuring something, such as progress or attainment, also seems appropriate. If you open a thesaurus and look up synonyms for the word “scales,” you will find some more interesting terms: balances, gauges, measures, gradations, hierarchies, tiers.

In my view, the scales used in training a horse should be more like the gentle gradations or tiers of a spiral than a series of steps leading straight up from the base to the peak of a pyramid. The idea of “scales” of music—often undertaken as a practice exercise—is also very suggestive. The spiral model that I propose is based upon the traditional Scales of Training but enables a more gradual progression from one tier to the next, as the horse’s training proceeds.

The basic idea of the Training Spiral is that you can progress through all the elements of the Scales in order (Rhythm, Suppleness, Contact, Impulsion, Straightness, Collection), without having to perfect each one before attempting the next. Instead, each element is completed to the degree that the horse can manage at his given level of training. As soon as one cycle of this training—one tier of the spiral—is completed, the next can begin—only in this new cycle (Tier 2), the degree of difficulty or quality expected is increased.

Riders of all levels and with different aims and ambitions can utilize the Training Spiral as it is applicable to anyone seeking to improve their horse’s way of going, even if they are not aiming as high as Grand Prix and even if they focus on a horse sport other than dressage. The Training Spiral can be applied over many different time frames—for example, over a five-minute section of a single training session, or over the period of a week’s training, or over the course of months of training.

As an example, consider the horse beginning at the bottom of the Spiral at Introductory Level. As his training progresses, he moves up the tiers of the spiral, improving each of the six elements of the Scales of Training in the following order (Rhythm, Suppleness, Contact, Impulsion, Straightness, Collection) to an acceptable degree for the stage the horse is training at, before progressing to the next tier. There he will again work to improve each of the six elements (in order), but this time to a higher degree of quality than he did in the previous tier. This process is repeated again and again as the horse gradually improves and progresses by focusing on each of the elements of the Scales of Training, one at a time, and at an appropriate degree of difficulty for his level. In the case of the Introductory Level horse, each tier might take perhaps a year or so to establish to a satisfactory standard before progressing on to the next tier.

To repeat, at each level of the Spiral, the horse should be able to achieve a degree of Rhythm, Suppleness, Contact, Impulsion, Straightness, and Collection appropriate for the horse’s stage of training. Obviously, the degree of difficulty or quality expected is different at each level. For example, the degree of Collection shown by a horse at the Introductory Level may simply be that he is no longer “diving” onto his forehand, whereas when a horse is trained to a more advanced level, such as Grand Prix, you expect to see a much higher degree of Collection—for example, the ability to perform passage and piaffe. The sequences of photographs on these pages demonstrate how this process of becoming more collected is an incremental development throughout the horse’s training and not just something that is only relevant to horses at an advanced stage of training.

This excerpt from The Training Spiral by Sue Grice is reprinted with permission from Trafalgar Square Books (www.HorseandRiderBooks.com).

There are more interesting articles in our sections on Health & Education and Books.

by Eleanor Kellon, VMD

SALT

A universal requirement for horses around the world is salt, primarily for sodium but chloride can also be deficient. The diet of all horses is deficient. Wait. If that’s true, how did horses survive without people to feed them salt? Feral horses make regular sojourns to areas with natural salt deposits where they stock up. Bone has a sizeable reservoir of sodium. In between, homeostatic mechanisms allow them to hold on to electrolytes in short supply. Left to their own devices, feral horses are perfectly content not to move at a pace beyond a walk so do not normally have excessive sweat losses. They are, however, at risk of severe dehydration if anything upsets this fragile balance.

Research has quantified what daily losses of sodium are and we also know how much is lost in sweat. There is no harm whatsoever in supplementing those losses as they occur to prevent the horse from going into negative balance. Doing so ensures optimal hydration, enhances digestion and mineral absorption, maintains normal nervous and muscular function.

OMEGA-3 FATTY ACIDS

In times of the year when fresh grass is not available, the horse's diet goes from one rich in omega-3 fatty acids (about half of their intake) to one with virtually none because these fragile fats do not survive long in cut and baled hay. Grains, brans, etc. are also low in omega-3s.

Omega-3 fatty acids are typically thought of as important to antiinflammatory balance but two studies have also shown supplementation boosts immune system responses in general. They are also pivotal in the development and health of the brain and eyes, and may influence behavior in young horses.

VITAMIN E

Vitamin E, abundant in fresh plant material, suffers the same fate as omega-3 fatty acids in hay. There are very real consequences to immunity, nerve and muscle function if ignoring vitamin E intake. Nutritional Russian roulette is not a good approach.

IN CONCLUSION

Those are the big three. Even if your horse is on a supplemented feed or a balancer you are probably not meeting requirements. A strong case can also be made for <em.selenium, iodine, zinc and copper in most areas but they are not quite as universal as omega-3s, vitamin E and salt.

Cheap Insurance!

This article originally appeared on Uckele Nutrition and is published here with permission.

There are lots of good articles in our section on Health & Education.

Monty Roberts demonstrates Join-Up® and the language of Equus at the Barretos Rodeo Festival 2023 in Brazil

Read more: Monty Roberts' Join-Up in Brazil at the Barretos Rodeo Festival 2023 (2:54)

Equitopia traveled to U.C. Davis where Dr. Sarah leJeune conducted a radiographic study to investigate what happens to a horse's spine when it's using core muscles while the hind quarters are rounded and "engaged." Can "kissing spine" (when vertebra rub together) be averted by not riding with a hollow back? Watch the video to see the incredible results!

Read more: Biomechanics Experiment: The Equine Spine - Neutral vs. Engaged