Question
My half-Belgian, half-Quarter Horse mare weighs about 1,150 lb (520 kg) and stands 15 hands (152 cm). Even though she’s big-boned, I’m not going to lie: Big Girl needs to drop a few pounds. She’d be considered moderately fleshy on the body condition scorecard, and in my favored sport of competitive trail riding, it would be healthier for her (and better for our scores) if she were less rotund. As far as her diet (because, trust me, she thinks she’s on a diet), she gets free-choice hay, a few handfuls of a vitamin and mineral pellet, and a salt lick. This ration works fine in the winter months when there’s no grass (she and I are both Canadian), but in the spring she likes to expand. I’d like to get her weight down so that her body condition is a 4.5 or 5. The only change I make in her diet involves the addition of some beet pulp before, during, and after a competition. How can I help Big Girl slim down?
Answer
Big Girl seems to be on an appropriate feeding program. If you need to limit her caloric intake at the moment, then the way to do that would be to limit her to 1.0-1.5% of her body weight in forage.
Once the weather turns and she enters regular work, maintaining her on a ration balancer and forage diet until she achieves the desired body condition and fitness level would be an advisable course of action. Given her breeding, I wouldn’t recommend taking her down to a body condition score of 4.5, as she’s likely to not have sufficient energy stores then. I’d use a score of 5 as your goal. She should look fit at that weight and likely still retain the musculature her breeding predisposes her to.
Ensure Big Girl has a free-choice source of salt at all times and that you’re replenishing the electrolytes she loses during training and competition with Restore SR, a sustained-release electrolyte for improved retention. In Australia and New Zealand, KER Restore is recommended for optimum electrolyte replacement. Many competitive trail and endurance riders also use EquiShure, a hindgut buffer for digestive health that contains a highly digestible slow-release source of sodium.
