WEG 2018: Feeding Dressage Horses

One of things that makes Kentucky Equine Research uniquely suited to manage the feed and forage at events like WEG is our relationship with feed manufacturers all around the world. We work with around 40 brands, located on six continents (and we like to say that if they ever open a feed mill in Antarctica, we’ll be there!).

Saracen Horse Feeds in the United Kingdom has been a great help for the 2018 Games. They graciously hosted the consolidation point for all the European feeds and helped with storing, testing, and packing the containers. While Saracen produces gorgeous feeds for horses of all types and disciplines, their relationship with top British dressage riders Carl Hester, Charlotte Dujardin, Spencer Wilton, and Natasha Baker, as well as the team at Mount St. John, is really fun to follow. Check out the Saracen Facebook page for updates, links, and lots of photos and video clips.

Dressage horses tend to require steady energy to maintain absolute focus on the rider, so the mix of energy sources preferred for these horses can be different than jumpers or eventers. Behavior is a real point of interest for many horse owners, but it’s one of the most difficult things for us to assess scientifically. We did an interesting study a few years ago that used heart-rate variability (HRV) as a measurable indicator of calmness.

Heart rate variability records the fluctuations between successive heartbeats, thereby measuring the function of the autonomic nervous system. HRV has been successfully used to study stress and behavior in humans and other species of livestock. Our study examined the effects of NSC levels on equine stress and behavior using HRV indices.

We used two feeds with different NSC levels (20.36% or 51.41%) in a four-week switchback study using four mature Thoroughbred geldings. The feeds were fed at levels calculated to supply a similar intake of digestible energy and there were no differences in weight change in the horses when fed either diet. We hypothesized that HRV indices would be higher with low NSC intake, which would indicate increased parasympathetic tone and a calmer demeanor—and that was indeed the case.

The proportion of pairs of RR intervals that differed by more than 50 ms (pNN50) were significantly higher (P < 0.05) for the low-NSC diet compared to the high-NSC diet. (A higher pNN50 is indicative of increased parasympathetic nervous system activity that has been associated with decreased stress and a more relaxed state.) Bottom line: this study suggests that NSC content of feed may affect behavior in horses. While this might not seem groundbreaking, being able to use this technology to test other ingredients and formulations may make for interesting studies in the future! Our partners can then apply these findings to optimize their feeds. More on our research program.