Fuelling the performance horse with fibre – it is possible!

Ballyneety Silver Service and Holly Richardson on their way to 14th place at Defender Burghley Horse Trials.

Fibre is essential for maintaining digestive health, and of course a horse needs to be healthy to perform – but is a fibre diet really enough to fuel a horse in work? Research has shown that even high-level competition horses can be fed on rations based on hay and alfalfa with only a very small proportion of cereals, without any detriment to performance or muscle tone (Martin et al., 2023).