Body condition score
Many of us worry about our ‘bikini bodies’ as we come into the festive season, but what about the weight and condition of your horse? Do you plan to alter his diet for better performance; plan to help him gain or lose weight; or simply ensure that he is in good health? The first step in choosing a feed for your horse or assessing his overall health is to look at his body condition. This can be quite subjective as different people have different ideas on how fat or thin a horse is.
It is for this reason that several body condition score charts have been devised to provide guidance for this type of assessment. Although there are several charts, most feed manufacturers prefer the American 9 score chart, as this provides a bigger range of options and more detail on what to look out for.
Before assessing your horses condition it is important to remember that a horse’s breed, as well as his workload, will influence how he should look. For example, a fit racehorse may need to carry less condition than a TB used for show jumping; or Warmbloods may naturally carry more condition than Arabs and this needs to be borne in mind. Despite this, however, there is no need for any horse to be excessively thin or obese.
So what are you looking at?
So, what are you looking at? Condition scoring looks at the amount of fat coverage a horse has over the shoulder and elbow region, the ribs, the withers, the loin and tail head, and the crest of the neck. Some discrepancies may be present simply due to the horse’s conformation, state of training or development so a horse may, for example, appear to have moderate looking hind quarters but a thin looking neck. It is important therefore to provide an average score for the horse and to understand where improvements can be made so that the diet can be altered accordingly.
IMPORTANT:
Whilst feeding can help to balance condition by providing the “building blocks” of muscle, it is vital to note that only correct training and work will help build the right topline, and give the horse a more pleasing shape. Feeding without correct work will not produce topline.
Areas that have particular significance
Fat thickness
If additional coverage behind the shoulder, over the ribs and around the tailhead area is required, then providing more calories in the horse’s diet is necessary. If these areas need reducing, then calories may need to be reduced
Distended belly
If this is larger than normal for a horse and his breed – this could be from:
- eating indigestible forage causing a hay belly. Stalky, very mature hay can be quite indigestible and feeding more leafy, younger cut hay can help with this.
- lack of physical fitness.
- worm burden (more likely to be seen when scoring young horses
Ideal scores
On the American 9 system, the average horse should be around a 5. Extremely fit horses may score 4 and some competition horses may be even reach a 6. However, no horse should fall below a 3 and the same applies for the opposite end of the scale. Even retired horses should not be overweight.
One step further
Researchers in Virginia have established a similar subjective scoring system for the neck region, as horses with a so-called “cresty neck” appear to be more prone to metabolic dysfunctions such as insulin resistance, laminitis and Cushing’s disease. The cresty neck scores (CNS) range from 0 to 5, where 0 indicates no visible appearance of a crest (no fleshy region along the mane) and 5 signifies a crest so large it droops to one side. Most horses will have some tissue coverage along the crest (in the 1–2 range), and horses with more fat coverage will be in the 3–4 range. A score of 3 or higher would be considered a “cresty neck” (Carter et al., 2009a). It is rare to see horses with a score of 5 and a drooping neck, though it is fairly common in miniature donkeys. Ideally horses should have a cresty neck score of around 2.
Conclusion
Although these scoring systems can be subjective, they do facilitate an overall condition and health assessment which aids in selecting not only the right diet but the correct exercise regime for each individual horse.