I do enjoy being an active AERC member for many reasons, chief among them the subscription to Endurance News. There was a recent interview with several successful endurance riders regarding horse nutrition, a topic I am currently struggling with. Puzzling out what Tarma needs in terms of nutrition to be a solid endurance horse for a heavyweight rider is definitely my weakest point. The signs of basic good nutrition are all there, but filling in holes or boosting things like recovery are really tricky for me to figure out. It can take months from starting a new supplement to see any results, and often they are so subtle I can miss them. Currently I feel like I’m throwing everything at the wall, but not really knowing what’s making an actual improvement.

I have asked my barn owner for the full testing results on next years hay (Tarma gets the low sugar stuff as a preventative), which is due to hit the barn within the next few weeks. Once I have that in hand, I can start really tweaking what she needs. I did a blood draw with her yearly vaccines in the spring, just focusing on her Vitamin E and Selenium levels. She tested low for both in October, within normal levels for a pasture puff but not an endurance horse. When I tried to feed her a loading dose of powered Vitamin E, she stopped touching her supplements for a month until I reduced her to a lower level, though she tested low again in March. Using FeedXL (without knowing what her hay is this year makes it tricky as there’s no real starting point), this is what she’s currently receiving:

• Free choice Willamette Valley pasture, 12-15 hours a day
• Free choice low sugar hay, 1/2 flake alfalfa in her stall at night
• 1 pound Triple Crown Complete (I tried to put her on a lower calorie ration balancer, but she’s A.) picky and B.) not the easiest keeper, and she snarfs down the Complete, so in true mare fashion, she gets the Complete!)
• 150 grams Purina Outlast (heard good things from a ton of other endurance riders)
• 6 grams Uckele GUT Pellets (she’s been on this as an ulcer preventative since I got her, and so far no signs of ulcers so it’s hard to remove it)
• 2 ounces California Trace pellets
• 10 ounces iodized salt
• 14 grams Vitamin E & Selenium pellets
• 5 grams Equinety Horse XL (for recovery as recommended by my dressage trainer)

When I was reading the interview, I was struck by how much…less most of those folks were feeding their high performing horses. Salt and Outlast were basically it, with a few throwing in some other things but almost universally no grain. If I take away the Complete as the carrier, I’ve struggled finding something to replace it that works for my barn owner and that Tarma will eat. When I first brought her home, I made it to the barn every night and mixed her supplements in soaked beet pulp, which my barn owner doesn’t do unless it’s for a medical issue. I don’t like feeding things like beet pulp or alfalfa pellets unsoaked, and Tarma won’t touch the three ration balancers I’ve tried (Purina, Triple Crown and LMF). It’s rough to have to buy a 50 pound bag of feed to try only for her to leave it untouched. I’ve also tried feeding with no carrier and that goes over like a lead balloon also.

My twin goals for tweaking her feed are growing a better hoof, she tends to be a little sore on tougher footing, which is why I keep booting and shoeing her, and ensuring I’m setting her up for strength. Oh, and preventing ulcers (which research has shown around 70% of endurance horses deal with!) is always top of mind as well. Just simple things, you know?