Nutrition for Dressage Horses

Every dressage horse is different, so it's important to work together with a trainer, coach and nutritionist to determine the proper feeding program. Feed a dressage horse a beet pulp-based, fattened fiber with molasses with helpful advice in this video on horse training and dressage.

Talking a little bit about nutrition for dressage horses, very important. You want to work together with your trainer, your coach and possibly even a nutritionist, which we use throughout the year for all of our horses, because again every horse is different, their training program is different whether it is a young horse, starting out or a top fit athletic Grand Prix horse, you feed all of them very differently, and you know that changes from time to time as well. So what we feed is a fattened fiber, keeping the horse bulked up a little bit, getting them nicely in a nice weight. Bigger horses, obviously will eat a little bit more grain and of course a Grand Prix horse who is working five to six days a week, an hour a day, is quite fit and is going to be getting a lot more grain than a horse that is just a young horse, you know starting out doing three days a week. So you definitely want to discuss a little bit with your trainers and nutritionist what to feed exactly but mostly what our feed consists of down here in Florida is like a beet pulp based, fattened fiber, has some molasses in there. The horses can hear it, actually they really love their food, so this is what it looks like. It has got a little bit of pellets in there, a little bit of beet pulp and definitely has, is an energy feed. We also to some horses that are a little harder to keep some weight on, beet pulp we like to feed because it adds a little more bulk to them without adding a lot of the energy. It does have a little bit more sugar in there, but it is kind of a nice fill for them if you have a horse that you need to beef up but don't want to give a ton of grain to as well as we add a little bit of a vitamin supplement, which you know just gives them those extra vitamins that they may need as well as you know you can give your horses glucosamine, different supplements providing whatever work load they are getting. They may need glucosamines, they may not need glucoscamine so something to talk about with your vet and decide together but very important to have a good program.