Dr Jazmin Markey – PhD, PAS
For a sport horse in regular training, injury can change the daily routine almost overnight. A horse accustomed to consistent exercise may suddenly transition to box rest, limited turnout, hand-walking or another form of controlled activity. While rehabilitation itself progresses carefully over time, the feeding programme should evolve alongside it.
One of the most immediate nutritional changes associated with reduced workload is a decrease in calorie requirements, along with changes in the horse’s overall nutrient requirements. Continuing to provide a diet designed for full training may supply more than the horse currently requires; however, simply cutting back or removing the concentrate portion of the diet can create another problem, as calories are not the only constituents being removed.
Comprehensive feeds also provide protein and essential amino acids, fat and carbohydrates (energy sources), vitamins and minerals. When these feeds are substantially reduced, particularly below their recommended feeding rates, the amount of these nutrients supplied by the total diet decreases as well. The diet should therefore be reassessed to ensure that these requirements continue to be met, without providing too much in excess. It becomes a bit of a balancing act.
During the earliest stages of rehabilitation, nutrient and calorie requirements may decrease considerably, particularly when exercise is severely restricted. For horses previously receiving larger quantities of concentrate feed, this often means that this portion of the total diet can be reduced.
Forage should continue to form the foundation of the diet whenever medically appropriate, providing fibre to support gastrointestinal and hindgut health and normal feeding behaviour during a period when many other aspects of the horse’s routine have changed.
The remainder of the feeding programme should then be evaluated to ensure that reducing concentrates has not created unintended nutritional gaps. For some horses, a ration balancer can provide a useful bridge during this stage in place of a typical feed, supplying quality protein and essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals without the same calorie contribution as a comprehensive feed.
One of the challenges of rehabilitation is that body weight does not always reflect what is happening underneath. As exercise decreases, a horse may maintain its weight, or even gain weight, while simultaneously losing muscle. Exercise provides an important stimulus for maintaining and developing muscle, meaning prolonged reductions in activity can result in visible changes to the topline even when overall body condition remains adequate.
This creates an important distinction between body condition and muscle development. Adding calories simply because a horse has lost topline may increase body fat without addressing the loss of training stimulus contributing to the change. Conversely, substantially restricting the diet because the horse has become slightly heavier may make it more difficult to maintain a balanced supply of nutrients.
Monitoring body condition alongside topline and muscle development provides a more complete picture of how the horse is changing throughout rehabilitation.
Rehabilitation rarely moves directly from rest to full training. Instead, exercise is progressively reintroduced, often beginning with controlled walking before advancing in duration and intensity. Nutrition should follow the same principle.
A horse beginning controlled exercise does not immediately regain the calorie or nutrient requirements it had in full work. Rather than automatically restoring the previous diet as soon as exercise resumes, additional nutrient sources should be introduced progressively, according to the work actually being performed, body condition, appetite and the horse’s individual response.
As workload increases, continue to reassess the diet rather than assuming the pre-injury feeding programme remains the right endpoint. Rehabilitation may change the horse’s ‘normal’ needs, making the return to work an opportunity to build the diet around the horse as it presents today.
As rehabilitation advances and training becomes more demanding, the lower-calorie diet that worked during early recovery may eventually stop meeting the horse’s needs.
Additional calories can then be introduced progressively to maintain appropriate body condition and support increasing exercise. At the same time, quality protein and essential amino acids remain important as muscle responds to the renewed training stimulus, while vitamins, minerals, forage, water and electrolytes continue to support normal physiological function.
Significant changes in feed type or quantity should be made gradually. The return to full work is a progression, and the feeding programme should adapt with it rather than jumping directly from a rehabilitation diet back to the previous full-performance diet.
The nutritional progression can be thought of in three stages:
Adjust → Adjust the diet as workload changes.
Maintain → Maintain balanced nutrient intake throughout rehabilitation.
Rebuild → Rebuild the performance diet progressively to meet exercise demands.
No two rehabilitation programmes (or horses) progress exactly alike, and neither should their feeding programmes.
One horse may maintain appropriate condition on forage and a balancer throughout several months of controlled exercise. Another may require additional calories much earlier. Forage quality and intake, temperament, body condition, muscle development, appetite, metabolism and the duration of rehabilitation can all influence when the diet needs to change.
For this reason, labels such as ‘box rest’, ‘rehab’ or ‘back in work’ only tell us part of the story. The amount and intensity of exercise actually being performed, and how the individual horse is responding, provide much more useful information.
When feeding a sport horse through rehabilitation:
Reassess calorie and nutrient intake as workload changes, rather than automatically continuing the full-training diet.
Consider which nutrients are being removed whenever a comprehensive feed is substantially reduced.
Maintain appropriate forage intake whenever medically possible.
Monitor body condition and muscle development separately, rather than relying on body weight alone.
Consider a ration balancer when calorie requirements decrease but the diet still requires additional quality protein, vitamins and minerals.
Increase calorie provision progressively as exercise demands increase.
Make significant dietary changes gradually, rather than moving directly from a rehabilitation diet to the previous full-performance diet.
Coordinate nutritional management with your veterinarian, equine nutritionist and rehabilitation team when the underlying injury or medical condition creates specific dietary considerations.
Keyflow® offers feeding options that can be adapted as workload, body condition and nutritional requirements change throughout the phases of rehabilitation.
During periods of substantially reduced activity, an appropriate balancer can help maintain quality protein, essential amino acids, vitamins and minerals without requiring the higher calorie intake associated with a full-performance feed or diet programme. As workload progressively increases, the feeding programme can then be adapted according to the individual horse’s changing requirements.
Keyflow's Perfect Balance provides a concentrated, low calorie formulation with low, economical feeding rates. As well as having a low energy rating making it perfect for horses in low work rates and box rest. Perfect balance delivers perfectly balanced micronutrients and specifically selected proteins, as well as generous levels of omega 3 oils to boost health and vitality, while prebiotic digestive support looks after the hind gut.
Successful rehabilitation nutrition is not about feeding for where the horse was before injury, or where you hope it will be several weeks from now. It is about feeding the horse in front of you and allowing the diet to progress with the comeback.
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