Basic Care and Feeding of the Dressage Horse (and Rider)

Dressage is a sport. This means that we as riders are athletes and our horses are athletes. These facts have similar implications for both horses and riders. So what are the essential elements of an athlete’s life? I think there are three. 

The most obvious element is a coherent training program that is focused on realistic goals. For a very few horses and riders, participating in one or more major international competitions is a reasonable goal. For others, regional or national championships will probably be the upper limit. For still others, the development of a reliable connection and three rhythmical gaits will be a significant and very worthwhile achievement. To determine what are reasonable goals for you and your horse you should consult an experienced trainer. Your trainer can help you develop a program to improve your horse’s athleticism and move you toward your goals. Whatever your ultimate goals, the training process for the horse must involve the development of the horse’s physique and improvement of the gaits and responsiveness to the aids. The rider’s learning process must involve developing a more stable position, a better feel (the ability to evaluate feedback from the horse) and more sophisticated application of the aids. And unless you are naturally athletic, fit and symmetrical, you might occasionally consult a physical therapist and a personal trainer (in addition to your dressage trainer) to learn how to increase your symmetry and develop your own fitness and athleticism.

The second element is nutrition. There is a lot of nutritional information available relating to both horses and humans. All human athletes must be careful about their diets, and riders are no exception. There is no particular diet for riders; it is just best to keep in mind the same rules that apply to everyone—eat a varied diet with as few empty calories as possible (i.e., avoid highly refined foods), and eat whatever amount of a good diet that will keep your weight within the healthy BMI range.  With regard to horses, we know that horses are grazing animals. Grass is their most natural food and the food they most easily thrive on. Because top quality grass is not always available we rely on hay supplemented with grain-based feed as a substitute. Both pasture forage and hay may contain, in addition to grasses such as timothy and orchard grass, legumes such as clover and alfalfa, which are highly nutritious.

The third element is the rest of what contributes to an athlete’s well-being: grooming, rest and recreation, and equipment.

For equine nutrition we need to consider forage, grain, and water.

Forage. Forage can consist of pasture or hay or a combination of the two. What constitutes good hay? It should consist entirely of plants that are suitable for horses. That may seem obvious, but it bears repeating. There should be no toxic weeds in it, or plants that horses can’t eat. This means no ragweed, mustard plant, milkweed or any number of other toxic plants. It should be free of dirt and mold. This means that you should not feed horses round bales, since they are much more likely than the smaller bales to get moldy. 

How much hay should you feed? Unless your horse is overweight or has metabolic syndrome or some other medical reason to limit its hay consumption you should be able to free feed hay. If your hay is good quality and your horse is wasting it or gaining too much weight, cut back on the quantity. If your horse is losing too much weight, increase the hay ration. Whenever making a change in feed based on the horse’s weight, always remember to allow a few weeks to see the result of the change.

Wet hay or dry? Most people feed hay dry and most horses thrive on it. Horses that like their hay wet learn to dunk it in their water buckets. Although this can be annoying it is probably a good thing. If you have automatic waterers you might want to provide your dunker with a dunking bucket so that it doesn’t fill up the automatic waterer with so much hay that it can’t drink from the waterer. 

There are circumstances in which you should consider wetting your horse’s hay. If your horse has had an impaction colic wetting the hay can lessen the likelihood of further impactions. If your horse has respiratory allergies wetting the hay can minimize the amount of airborne allergens originating from the hay. And if your horse has metabolic syndrome or a similar need to minimize the sugar in its diet, soaking the hay for an hour or more can remove much of the sugars from the hay.

Grain. Forage, whether pasture or hay, should constitute the bulk of the horse’s diet. If your horse has 24-hour access to really good pasture you probably don’t need to feed any grain. Otherwise you will have to supplement with grain. Your choice of grain should be tailored to your horse’s breed, age, workload and any individual medical considerations. Your feed store and veterinarian should be able to help you pick an appropriate feed.

Water. There are arguments to be made for both buckets and automatic waterers. Buckets allow you to monitor water consumption and can reduce concern about frozen pipes. Automatic waterers obviously are more convenient. Whatever your water source, though, it must be used tp provide fresh clean water, and the bucket or waterer bowl should be cleaned daily.

For the rest of the horse’s care, we need to make certain that the horse has adequate opportunity for rest and to entertain itself, that it is kept clean, and that its equipment (tack) fits appropriately and is appropriate to the work we are asking the horse to do.

Bedding. Unless your horse is on 24 hour turnout with more than an acre of grass per horse, it probably spends a good portion of each day in a stall or dirt paddock. You can manage your horse’s stall as a comfortable bedroom or a jail cell. An inappropriately bedded stall is a jail cell. Horses are grazing animals and consequently move around almost constantly. With enough room to roam in they move away from their waste without having to think about it. When we put them in stalls we need to take full responsibility for the fact that we are restricting their mobility. Horses generally do not like urine splashing on their legs and given the opportunity will try to find a  place to urinate where splashing will not occur. Therefore it is important to bed deeply enough to prevent splashing. Most horses also prefer to be as far away from their manure as possible. In a large enough area they do not have to worry about this and will defecate randomly around the area. In a small paddock many horses will defecate in a far corner of the paddock, and in a stall in a specific corner or other area of the stall. (Obviously we all know horses who appear to be exceptions to this rule, but those exceptions can be accounted for by the horse’s temporarily or constantly elevating some other concern over hygiene or simply by a range within the equine population of attitudes toward hygiene that are not all that different from the range within the human population.) 

In addition to these obvious cleanliness concerns, research indicates that horses sleep longer the more deeply their stalls are bedded. We know from research with humans how important sleep is for both daily performance and longevity, so it makes sense to assume that horses benefit from sleep as well.

To address the foregoing concerns most types of bedding should be kept at a depth of 6” or more at all times. You can vary the depth somewhat depending on the type of bedding. If your bedding is highly absorbent your stalls might be fine with less depth. Less absorbent bedding must be deeper. In any event, try to find bedding that is not dusty. Dust is not good for the respiratory systems of humans or horses. Apart from the initial outlay involved in bedding the stall, it is no more expensive to bed appropriately than inadequately—you should be adding the same amount of bedding every day (you can make it every other day if you bed deeply enough to begin with). Cleaning a well bedded stall is a little more laborious. It does require a more sophisticated technique than just shoveling up everything that is on the floor. I know from experience, though, that it only takes about 15 or 20 minutes to train a willing person to clean stalls perfectly. 

I understand that there is a school of thought that holds that bedding should just barely cover the floor of the stall—that its only purpose is to absorb urine, and that it is healthier for the horse’s legs to stand on firm footing rather than on piles of shavings. I understand the logic of this position, but I believe it is faulty. First, if the bedding is only deep enough to barely absorb the urine, it will not prevent ammonia formation, and ammonia is a major contributor to respiratory disease in horses. Second, horses will rearrange their bedding to make themselves more comfortable when they are standing. Horses with hock problems may push bedding against the wall so that they can stand with their heels supported and their toes pointed down. Horses with arthritis in front leg joints will fidget until the bedding supports their feet at the most comfortable angle. A thin layer of bedding is not enough for these purposes. And if the horse actually prefers to stand on a hard flat surface it can stand in the front three feet or so of the stall that you sweep clean when you clean the stall.

There are horses that challenge any bedding system. Horses that urinate a lot (whether as a result of Cushing’s disease or for any other reason) will need more bedding. If their stalls are inadequately bedded, the swamp they present you with in the morning looks like it will only be worse if you give them more bedding. In fact, though, more bedding will make it easier for you as the horse will be able to stay on top of the mess rather than getting into it and spreading it around. On the other hand, horses that move around a lot and defecate in random parts of the stall will spread the manure around, making finding it and picking it up more time-consuming. With these horses you do have to find just the right amount of bedding. Too little and it all turns brown; too much and you just have to move too much bedding to find the hidden treasures. It can be done, though, and you just have to accept the fact that that horse’s stall will take more time. The horse did not ask to be kept in a stall, and the fact that the horse’s stall behavior does not seem as cooperative as that of its neighbor does not relieve the humans of their duty to care for the confined animal.

Stalls should be cleaned and rebedded every morning and, if the horses are in for a good portion of the day, picked again in the afternoon or evening. Every pile you take out in the afternoon is one you won’t have to (search for and) take out in the morning.

Environment. Flies. Flies are a problem for which there is no single solution. You will probably need to use all the available weapons. First, to limit the fly population, keep your barn and paddocks as clean as possible. Small paddocks (less than 1 acre per horse) are an extension of the horses’ stalls and should be cleared of manure just as regularly as stalls. A manure pile that cannot removed every day is a breeding ground for flies, so for that you can use fly predators. They do work, although their efficacy can be limited by the fly control practices of your near neighbors. 

Second, fly boots and masks can keep flies off some of their favorite areas. Fly sheets are helpful, too. It can be a tough call whether to use fly sheets in extremely hot weather, but so long as the sheet does not prevent the sweat from evaporating I think they are generally advisable. And fly sprays applied liberally can do a lot to keep the flies you do have from biting the remaining exposed areas of your horses. 

Finally, a stable-wide misting system can also help. As with fly sprays, there are a number of different systems that dispense a number of different products, from the most serious every-variation-on-chemical-pyrethrin products to the apparently more benign organic mixes. Do not assume that organic or “green” fly sprays or mists are necessarily better for your horse—some of them contain ingredients that some horses are allergic to, and the allergic reactions can be bad enough to require veterinary treatment.

Turnout. Turnout is a fraught subject. Opinions on turnout range from “horses are range/grazing animals and should be able to move freely 24 hours per day” to “no good ever came from turnout.” Returning horses to the conditions they might encounter in the wild exposes them to all the dangers they might encounter in the wild—exposure to harsh weather and to unfriendly members of other species. Keeping them confined to stalls is no different from confining humans to jail cells. So there has to be some middle ground that works for both horses and horse people. The most important thing to know about this middle ground is that it varies from horse to horse. Some horses hate being confined to stalls, while others like to stay inside and look out a window, maybe poking a foot out occasionally. Some people like to live in Manhattan, while others prefer Montana. The second most important thing to know, if you think your horse prefers the great outdoors, is that group turnout is one of the primary sources of leg fractures in horses. And before you decide that the best way to deal with that is to keep your horse in solitary confinement, remember that horses are social animals and need to be able to touch noses (at least) with other horses on a regular basis. Generally, the more space there is the better the horses confined to that space will get along. But not all horses get along with all other horses, so group turnout needs to be carefully monitored and adjusted as appropriate.

So as you try to work out your turnout arrangements, pay attention to both your horse’s desires and your obligation to keep your horse safe. Think of managing your horse’s turnout area the same way you would think about child-proofing your house. You don’t give your toddler knives to stick into exposed electrical outlets and you don’t leave large bits of machinery in the paddock for your horse to get a leg stuck in. Don’t turn your horse out in mud that is guaranteed to pull a shoe off, or worse yet, strain a ligament. You don’t leave your 3 year old child unsupervised with a 6 year old bully, and you don’t turn your horse out with a horse that has hind shoes and has never met your horse before. But just as children can play with other children outside without suffering grievous injury, so can horses. In both cases, though, some supervision by adult humans is necessary.

Clipping and Blanketing. Sometimes we clip horses to keep them pretty, which really has nothing to do with their welfare. But we also clip them for our convenience and their welfare (which overlap here). A clipped horse dries faster and therefore can be blanketed and put away sooner. If you’ve ever waited for a horse with a full winter coat to dry after an evening ride so that you could go home to dinner & bed you know what this means. Once you clip a horse, though, you have accepted responsibility for its thermal wellbeing. So you are responsible for blanketing the horse appropriately. 

Before we get to blanketing the clipped horse, though, if you have decided not to clip your horse for the winter, be aware that an unclipped horse is a different creature from a clipped horse. An unclipped horse, if it is able to grow a coat appropriate for the climate and has adequate shelter from wind and precipitation, can survive pretty severe weather without blanketing. And if you do blanket that horse you will be interfering with some of the insulating properties of the horse’s winter coat. One of those insulating properties is air. When you put a blanket on the horse you compress most of the air out of the coat. If it is a light blanket and the coat is full and the temperature is not too low, the blanket might well have its full effect. To the extent that any of those factors is missing, the beneficial effect of the blanket will be reduced.

For clipped horses blanketing is fairly straightforward, as the blanket will be providing most of the insulation. Rule of thumb: Always blanket for close to the warmest temperature the horse will be experiencing during the time the blanket(s) will be on. Horses can cope much better with being too cold than too hot. And horses differ one from the next in terms of how much blanket they need at any given temperature. To tell if your horse is warm enough, feel the ears and the bridge of the nose. If those parts are cool to the touch the horse is probably cold. 

Grooming. This may seem obvious, but grooming should not be cruel. It should enhance the horse’s well-being rather than diminish it. Therefore we should not remove tactile hairs (whiskers and ear hair). The hair in horses’ ears is protective and should not be shaved. Similarly the horse perceives elements of its environment, particularly food, via its whiskers. Some areas of the horses body can benefit from trimming. It is easier to keep trimmed legs clean, which can help to reduce the incidence of fungal and bacterial infections. It is important to be careful when trimming, though, as tiny nicks from clipper blades can be very hospitable to bacteria and can lead to cellulitis or lymphangitis. It is good practice to clean closely trimmed areas with an antibacterial shampoo (or at least rub them down with alcohol) immediately after clipping.

Mane pulling need not be torture for the horse. Some horses don’t mind it at all, but others find it uncomfortable or even painful. For horses that object to pulling, just don’t do it. A Solo Comb or similar bladed comb can achieve the same result as a pulling comb with just a few minutes of practice. Or if you don’t like that process a combination of scissors and thinning shears will work. 

The horse needs to be groomed before and after work. Before work you want to remove dirt from the saddle area that might be ground into the skin and cause irritation. You should also clean and inspect the legs to make sure there are no obvious injuries that might interfere with work. And after work you want to remove sweat marks that will be itchy and irritating and can cause dirt and bacteria buildup. Some states regulate the treatment of school horses, and in some of those jurisdictions it is illegal to put a horse away with sweat marks. In warm weather the best way to clean a horse after work is with lots of water. A wash stall with hot and cold running water where you can cross tie the horse makes this task a lot easier. If you don’t have access to hot running water you can use an immersion heater to heat water in a bucket and splash it on and scrub with a big sponge (you should have this equipment available for use at competitions). Don’t wash a horse with cold water unless it is necessary to cool a dangerously hot horse or there is no other option. If you can wash the horse it is important to scrape off as much water as possible. A lot of water left on the horse will act like a wet suit and prevent the horse from cooling off. A damp coat, on the other hand, will assist in cooling as the thin layer of water evaporates in the same manner as sweat. You should also dry the face and legs with a towel, paying particular attention to the backs of the pasterns where scratches tend to develop. If the horse does get scratches, prompt treatment with silver sulfadiazine or some other anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agent is essential.

The horse’s feet should be picked at least once daily. I like to pick feet when the horse comes in from turnout. That way I know whether I need to go out and comb the turnout area for a missing shoe and I can inspect the feet for foreign objects like stones. Daily hoof picking is also essential for detecting thrush. As in the case of scratches, prompt treatment is essential.

Tack. When you get a new bridle or leather halter take it apart and soak it in neatsfoot or vegetable oil overnight. Then hang it up to drip dry and wipe off any remaining oil with a clean cloth. This will make the leather soft and flexible (and thus more comfortable for horse and rider) and is an important step for ensuring a long life for the equipment. And if you do it you might even be able to get away with minimal wipe downs for your daily cleaning for weeks or even months.

Tack fit obviously is important. Determining whether a bridle fits is fairly easy. Saddle fit is another matter. I am old enough to remember when we bought a saddle based on the appeal of its style and tree width alone. If it slipped forward we would add a foregirth. Saddle fit issues often present themselves as training issues—back pain is a major cause of resistance—so they often went undiagnosed. Now saddle makers are much more sophisticated. You can have a saddle built to your and your horse’s measurements by any saddle maker, and have the fit adjusted if and when necessary by a competent saddle fitter (you should have the fit reassessed every 6 to 12 months). That sounds quite simple, and in theory it is; but it can be a very expensive, time-consuming, and frustrating process. If you expect your horse to progress through the levels of dressage, though, it is a process you must undertake. If you are making minimal demands on your horse you can make the process cheaper by buying a used saddle. Even when buying a used saddle, though, for best results have a competent saddle fitter evaluate the saddle’s suitability for you and your horse before you buy it. And if you have a saddle that doesn’t quite fit, have a saddle fitter adjust it as much as possible and make up the difference with appropriate padding. 

Clean tack isn’t just more pleasant to look at, it is also safer and healthier for your horse. Clean leather and clean saddle pads help to keep your horse clean by not recycling the dirt and sweat back onto the horse. And by cleaning it, or even just wiping it down, every day you have an opportunity to notice little cracks in the leather that could turn into big cracks. Big cracks can be life threatening.

At a bare minimum rinse off the horse’s bit(s) immediately after every ride. If your barn does not have running water that is easily accessible for this purpose you can dunk the bits in the horse’s water bucket. Then after you have groomed the horse appropriately and put it away, wipe down the bridle, girth, and billet straps with a damp cloth or sponge to get rid of any dirt and oils that have coated the leather. Follow that step by wiping with a glycerin soap or a daily conditioner. If you use a glycerin-based spray cleaner you can skip the water step and go right to the spray cleaner step. Glycerin-based spray cleaners really are one-step cleaners and do not lead to gunk build-up the way some one-step cleaner/conditioners do. They are a bit more expensive than the bar glycerin soaps, but if you want to use bar glycerin you can’t skip the first step of removing dirt and sweat with just water. Some makers of tack cleaning products sell separate cleaning and conditioning products. They are not interchangeable. You can substitute water for the cleaner, but you cannot substitute the cleaner for the conditioner. For daily cleaning you don’t need to unfasten any of the buckles, so the whole process of bridle cleaning can be done in less than 5 minutes. Apart from the billet straps, saddles do not need daily cleaning. As soon as you see dust or dirt build-up you should remove it. I think a little water and glycerin based cleaner is fine, but some saddle makers recommend only brushing dirt off with a dry brush and then conditioning only with lederbalsam.

On at least a monthly basis you should deep clean tack and apply an oil or wax based conditioner. A wax based conditioner (lederbalsam) is safe for saddles and bridles. Oil based conditioners should be used sparingly and only on bridles and leather halters. Both have a deep moisturizing effect that keeps the leather flexible and helps to prevent cracking.

Final thoughts. Everything I have discussed above relates to the well-being of the horse as a domestic animal. As humans who choose to keep animals for our own enjoyment we owe them a huge responsibility. We must remember that they are sentient beings. They do not think or feel in exactly the same way that we humans do, but that does not mean that they don’t think and feel, or that their thoughts and feelings are not equally deserving of consideration as our own. The fact that we have the ability to confine them and to make them engage in complex behaviors at our whim does not give us the right to bully or otherwise mistreat them. So even though your relationship with your horse necessarily entails your ability, indeed your obligation, to set and enforce an agenda for the horse, you must make sure that you do so fairly, coherently and consistently, and with regard for the unique being each horse is.

© Shan A. Lawton

Published in The Contact, Summer 2019 Newsletter