Recently, I was lucky enough to have Briony back out again to assess Cinders and her current diet. This is just one of the amazing bits of the support we receive from Writtle University College as part of the Academy Team! Some may ask why I look forward to these meetings as much as I do the physical training on Cinders with Jane. Well… the answer is that I’m a big believer that nutrition is often a forgotten, or underestimated, component of our horses management. Yet it can have a big influence on not just how well our horses look, for example how shiny their coat is, but also how much energy (or in some cases how much excess energy our horses have!). Briony is not only a brilliant lecturer at Writtle but she really is like a complete book/anthology on nutrition so I really enjoy being able to pick her brain (Luckily she doesn’t mind a Q&A session!)

As I expected Cinder’s weight hasn’t fluctuated much since her last appointment, which is great because it means what she is currently being fed is working! However I was able to discuss with Briony how she has been feeling recently in her training. I expressed to her how I had been feeling that Cinders was lacking a bit of stamina. Which isn’t shocking as she’s in full work and surviving well on just a balancer and fibre. Unsurprisingly, Briony instantly had about 5 ideas to resolve this issue and left it down to me to decide which option works best for Cinders and I. As a result I’ve begun adding a high oil feed into her diet, in the form of Baileys Outshine. Currently she can just have a handful a day to acclimatise her gut to the new feed. However, I have the option to increase this when I feel she needs more energy ie. when I’m at a competition.

Feel free to scroll back through my blog to find my post on my original Nutritional Meeting!