Preventing weight gain is key in winning equine obesity battle

Vets were pleased to see there were fewer overweight animals at Royal Windsor Horse Show this year

- ELEANOR JONES

PREVENTING weight gain is the key to battling equine obesity – but a pioneering initiative is helping make positive changes, vets believe.

The Horse Trust’s Healthiest Body Condition Awards, which have been running since 2019, were presented in some showing classes at Royal Windsor (10–14 May). Vets assessed the animals and presented rosettes to those in the healthiest condition.

One of these was Jane Nixon, an experienced equine vet, chair of The Showing Council and advocate for healthy equine weight.

“I was delighted,” Dr Nixon told H&H. “It was a marked improvement from what I’d seen in the past.”

Dr Nixon said she spoke to all the exhibitors in her classes, and “there was understanding and appreciation” of the importance of a healthy weight, although some found it difficult to maintain this, especially in older horses who had been overweight in the past.

She said the “overwhelming majority” in the working hunter classes were of a healthy weight, “the most pleasing being the heavyweight class”.