Equine nutrition, best practices from foals to racehorses, was covered in the third panel of the 2024 OwnerView webinar series, held May 14.
The conference is hosted by The Jockey Club and the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association and presented by Bessemer Trust, Stoll Keenon Ogden, and The Green Group. The panel was sponsored by OCD Pellets.
A Q&A was sponsored by West Point Thoroughbreds, and attendees were able to ask questions through a Q&A link, which were answered at the end of the webinar.
The panel consisted of Cherie DeVaux, trainer; Anthony Koch, director of Sales & Marketing, Hallway Feeds; Dr. Joe Pagan, founder and president of Kentucky Equine Research; and Bradley Purcell, farm manager at Claiborne Farm. Gary Falter, project manager for OwnerView, was the moderator.
The webinar began with a discussion on feeding mares and foals and preventive care for horses with feeding.
"The horse can tell you how they are doing from the inside out," Purcell said. "If you're looking at a horse that's in good flesh and good health, then the nutrition's there -- it kind of follows in the background. You are doing your job if you're looking at a nice-looking animal."
When it comes to feeding late pregnant mares, Dr. Pagan emphasized how important mineral nutrition is. "The last trimester is a really important time," he said. "Seventy percent of fetal growth occurs during the last trimester."
The importance of water and hay intake were also discussed. Panelists agreed that anything you can do to get more water into a horse is good for them. "Changing it [water] frequently is a huge key in encouraging drinking," Koch said. "Getting the electrolytes balanced correctly, having access to salt all the time -- it's going to encourage that consumption."
Regarding feeding racehorses coming to a trainer for the first time, DeVaux said, "When they come in, it's closely monitored -- what they are eating. If they are not eating, we might call the farm to get a couple of bags of their feed so we can integrate it into our feeding program, which is Hallway."
More information on nutrition best practices can be found by watching the replay of Tuesday's Thoroughbred Owner Conference panel at bit.ly/OVVideos.
Seven additional Thoroughbred Owner Conference virtual panels are scheduled for 2024.
The next session, "Horseman's (Owner) Relations & Owner Liability," will be held June 11 at 2 p.m. ET. A full schedule can be found here: bit.ly/OVSchedule.
There is no registration fee for the 2024 virtual conference series, but registration is required. For more information about the owner conference series, including the schedule of panels and registration, please visit ownerview.com/event/conference or contact Gary Falter at 859.224.2803 or gfalter@jockeyclub.com.
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