3rd August 2023

Remember when you first decided to buy your OTT? And you had lofty dreams of rehoming and re-schooling a lanky ex-racehorse? You knew they might come with quirks, right? Maybe windsucking or weaving? Maybe shying at everything from wheelie bins to discarded chip packets. Perhaps you had an inkling that OTTs could cost a little bit more to feed…

But perhaps it’s proving a little bit more challenging than anticipated.

We hear you – and you are not alone! Taking on an OTT can be super rewarding, but it can also be quite a challenge – especially at the start.

Weight is usually the biggest issue – whether it’s struggling to put weight on OR having to feed A LOT of feed just to maintain weight. Other common issues are gastric ulcers, brittle hooves, and a lack of appetite.

Here are some feeding tips to help you…

Tip #1 Feed plenty of forage and encourage good hindgut health.

Your OTT should eat at least 2% of their body weight in forage, per day. A diverse range of forage sources, including pasture and hay, is essential. While forage should form the foundation of every horse’s diet, it’s especially important in OTTs. This is because racehorses often have an imbalanced hindgut microbiome.

The low-fibre and high-grain (and therefore high-starch) diets often fed to racehorses, can disrupt their hindgut microbiome, shifting the balance of bacteria from predominantly ‘good’ fibre-fermenting bacteria to ‘bad’ starch-fermenting bacteria. What’s worse is that the ‘bad’ bacteria can also turn the hindgut into an acidic environment, which kills off the ‘good’ bacteria. This is a BIG problem because your horse needs abundant ‘good’ bacteria in order to derive energy from fibre (pasture, hay, chaff) and maintain weight.

To help restore the balance, base your OTT’s diet on forage. Round-the-clock access to pasture is best (or provide constant access to other forage if grass is not available). In addition, feeding at least 2 types of hay (eg. lucerne and grassy hay) is ideal because this provides fibre diversity, which promotes a more diverse and robust hindgut microbiome.

Tip #2 Treat and prevent equine squamous gastric disease (ESGD).

The stress, diet, and exercise regime of racehorses can lead to gastric ulcers – over 90% of racehorses have them. Hence, it is well worth having your OTT scoped to determine the presence and/or severity of ulceration. You can then treat ulcers, as per your vet’s recommendations. Following treatment (if required), you should try to help prevent ulcer re-development.

The key to ulcer prevention is feeding a forage-based diet (particularly long stem forage) because chewing and saliva production helps buffer stomach acid.

Feeding some lucerne hay before riding – so you aren’t exercising your horse on an empty stomach, where they’re at risk of acid splash – is a further preventative strategy.

Tip #3 Choose supplementary feed wisely, introduce it gradually, and be patient!

Because you’re working towards re-establishing a healthy hindgut in your OTT, be mindful about which supplementary feeds you choose. It can be tempting – especially if your OTT needs to put on weight – to opt for a ‘conditioning’ feed and then feed LOTS of it. The problem is that many ‘conditioning’ feeds tend to be high in starch – exactly what you don’t want when you’re trying to re-establish a population of ‘good’ fibre-fermenting bacteria. While a high-starch conditioning feed may put weight on, you will still have a horse who can’t properly digest fibre, and you’ll likely need to continually feed a whole LOT of ‘hard’ feed to maintain weight.

The key is to be patient and gradually introduce a highly digestible, supplementary feed.

Months 1 – 4: Allow your OTT constant access to forage and add a good quality balancer pellet. Ideally, it should be balanced for vitamins and minerals, contain high-quality protein, plus fibre and oil-based energy ingredients.

Months 5 – 6: Allow your horse constant access to forage, keep feeding their good quality balancer pellet AND gradually add in a highly digestible (cooked) feed for extra energy. CopRice R or High Joule are both great options. Both CopRice R and High Joule contain stabilised rice bran. While stabilised rice bran does contain starch, it is highly digestible (so it’s more likely to be digested in the small intestine – not the hindgut) AND it’s much lower in starch than other grain-based feeds. This makes it the perfect addition to an OTTs diet to help with weight gain, while still allowing the re-establishment of a healthy hindgut microbiome.

Months 7 – 12: Allow your OTT constant access to forage and if they require more digestible energy in their diet – or you want to simplify their diet – gradually transition them over to a highly digestible (cooked) complete feed, such as CopRice Versatile or Performer – depending on their level of work. These are both extruded feeds (again, based on stabilised rice bran, with its highly digestible form of starch).

Tip #4 Monitor feed intake.

Ensure your OTT is eating properly AND has the opportunity to eat. Many OTTs pace or wind suck/crib which increases their energy output but decreases their feed intake. In both cases, having them in a paddock with a relaxed paddock mate who grazes all day, can help a whole lot!

Next, make sure your OTT’s feed is actually being eaten by them. OTTs tend to walk away from their feed and come back to it, so separating them from any gutsy (albeit appreciative) paddock mates at mealtimes can be beneficial (if not essential).

Tip #5 Consider a biotin supplement.

Many OTTs struggle with poor or brittle hooves (they are well known for it). Arguably this is the result of a low-forage diet and an unhealthy hindgut. During fibre fermentation in the hindgut, ‘good’ bacteria produce biotin, so when these bacteria are lacking, not enough biotin is produced, and hoof health can suffer.

Feeding your OTT plenty of forage, re-establishing a healthy hindgut microbiome, and feeding a diet balanced with good-quality protein, vitamins and minerals should help address this issue. BUT to help speed the process up, you can also feed a good quality biotin supplement.

It can certainly take time, patience and a whole lot of TLC to properly feed (and restore the gut health of) your OTT after their racing career. But doing so early on will help you have a healthier horse who doesn’t cost you a fortune to feed in the long run.

And there’s nothing quite so heart-swellingly satisfying as gazing upon that big, beautiful, goofy thoroughbred, who you personally helped to make shine again.

CopRice – Nutrition that stacks up.

Got questions? Need advice on the right diet for your OTT? The Team at CopRice would love to help! Give us a call on 1800 029 901.

The information provided in this article is intended as a guide only. Information contained in this article has been provided by the manufacturer/ You should not rely on the information in this article, and it should not be considered advice. You should seek professional advice regarding relevant factors specific to your situation. This article does not take into account variable conditions that may impact performance. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Nutrien Ag Solutions Limited and its related associated entities will not be liable for any loss or damage suffered by any person arising out of any reliance on any information contained in this article