Showing judges must place overweight horses down the line, it has been said, as joint efforts continue against the equine obesity epidemic. At the Showing Council summer conference on 28 June, the Horse Trust’s Jan Rogers and researcher Tamzin Furtado gave a presentation on their “Weigh to Win” scheme. The scheme awards rosettes in showing […]
Horse & Hound
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This was the question asked of all of us at the National Equine Forum yesterday (4 March).
The virtual conference covered topics from Brexit to diversity to road safety, and also returned to the topics of two associated webinars, held in January.
One of these was The Great Weight Debate (Equine), a discussion featuring a horse owner, a vet, a livery yard manager, a nutritionist, an equine welfare officer and Showing Council chairman David Ingle.
Tamzin Furtardo, whose PhD was on equine obesity and owners’ attitudes towards it, and who was also present for that webinar, summed up the issues raised in the discussion, including the prevalence of images of overweight horses, leading to a perception than fat is normal, confusion over what to feed and the challenges of managing horses who need to lose weight.