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Why sugar could be souring your horse
Is your young horse fidgety? Not paying attention? Maybe even disoriented?
Sugar may be the culprit.
Feeding sweet grains to colts and fillies during early stages of training can make them disobedient and fearful, a new study by equine scientists at Montana State University in Bozeman suggests.
The grains provide an extra kick, the experts say, that — put in human terms — reduces attention spans and can make the rascals squirm. In short: a sugar high.
In fact, young horses might be easier to train if they lay off the sweets, says Jan Bowman, an MSU animal nutritionist who was part of a study that tracked the effects of different feeds on 2-year-olds in training.
Here’s how the study worked:
A dozen young quarter horses from an Idaho ranch were divided into two groups. Half ate only hay (a mixture of grass and alfalfa), and the other half were fed up to five pounds of sweet grain per day in addition to the hay. Both groups ate as much hay and drank as much water as they wanted.
An instructor from MSU’s Colt Starting Class trained the horses five days a week for three weeks straight. Each horse wore a pedometer, adjusted to its stride, and a heart monitor that displayed minimum, maximum and average heart rates.
The trainer worked with the animals about 40 minutes each per day, and didn’t know which animals had been fed the grain. Researchers also recorded heart rates and step counts. Then they rated the horses’ behaviors, including obedience, energy levels and separation anxiety.
Sure enough, the results suggested that training was more effective in the horses that had the lowest “excess dietary energy,” states the study. In other words, horses that skipped the sugar-laden grains had the smallest adrenaline rush. And that’s a good thing if you want the horse to pay attention.
Bowman says this doesn’t mean trainers should never feed grain. But they might consider withholding it in the early weeks of a young horse’s first training program, when that extra focus by the horse can increase training effectiveness.
And, yes, all the horses gained weight during the study. Five pounds of grain and all the hay you can eat doesn’t help anyone maintain a girlish figure.
• For more information on this study and other MSU equine research, visit www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=6127
