How does my young horse grow?

The more we understand about the early years, the healthier the equine athletes we’ll raise, discovers Andrea Oakes

- Andrea Oakes

ON a hilly wilderness in southern Sweden, a group of warmblood fillies is busy growing up under the distant but watchful eye of former equine vet and biomechanics expert Professor Ingvar Fredricson.

Free to roam over an area the size of 70 football fields, the youngsters are monitored daily, in person and with drones, and have been fitted with HoofStep sensors on their halters that measure their movement patterns and health status. The study, known as the Brösarp Project, is small-scale yet should offer an insight into how growing sport horses develop under different management systems.

According to Ingvar, it has long been known that optimum movement during foal hood and beyond can contribute to longterm soundness.

“My main goal is to make horse breeders aware that young horses who are able to move over large areas, with different footing, grow up to be strong and durable individuals,” he explains, contrasting this upbringing with the more “static” lifestyle typical of a big breeding barn.

“At auction you can buy a foal, filly or colt with an interesting performance pedigree that moves and jumps brilliantly, without knowing anything about how it has been reared. If you invest years of training in a very expensive young horse, you must be pretty sure that its performance career does not end too early due to lameness.”