Why I feed small meals more often on show days

If you have ever watched a horse suck back at a feed bucket the moment the float pulls up at a competition venue, you already understand why showing day feeding rules the roost in our routine. Long before I worry about studs or plaits, I am thinking about what is going into the gut, how much, and how often. Years of mistakes have taught me that a steady trickle of small meals works better for my horses than one or two big dumps of feed and hay.

This is not a feeding philosophy pulled from a textbook. It is something that has evolved after plenty of trial and error, plenty of mucking out at strange hours in Canberra carparks, and watching my own horse become a fizzy rocket or a sleepy sloth depending on what I gave him the morning of a cross-country round. The pattern that emerged is simple: smaller meals, more often, and timed with the rhythm of the day.

Horses are trickle feeders by design. They are built to nibble across sixteen or eighteen hours a day, walking from one tuft to the next, not bolting a bucket and standing around with nothing in their belly for six hours. Most days at home we do our best to mimic that. On competition days, when everything else is shouting for attention, it is easy to forget how much disruption a long float trip, a strange stable, and the smell of the warm-up arena can put on a digestive system that is used to peace and quiet.

The honest science behind splitting up the feed

A horse's stomach is roughly the size of a rugby ball. Mine, the rider's, is bigger than that, and I have written about my own less glamorous battle with the scales over on rider fitness. The horse's stomach, however, produces acid constantly whether food is in there or not. When there is no fibrous mash to soak up that acid, it sloshes around and can splash up against the unprotected upper portion of the stomach lining. Gastric ulcers are the unhappy end of that story, and they are disgustingly common in sport horses.

Splitting the day's hard feed into four or five smaller portions keeps something in the stomach for the acid to work on. The same principle applies to hay, whether that means small holed hay nets that take longer to empty or pushing out a couple of biscuits across the day rather than chucking an entire bale in and walking away. The goal is not to feed more, it is to feed more often without ramping up the total intake of grain-based feed past what the horse actually needs for the work in front of it.

Smaller meals also help when the gut is stressed by travel. My gelding is a notorious weedy traveller, and after a six hour drive up the Hume his manure is always a bit on the soft side for the first twenty four hours. Spreading out his feed, soaking everything thoroughly, and offering smaller amounts at a time seems to settle him back to normal faster than trying to tempt him with a giant breakfast on arrival. There is research pointing to a lower risk of gastric splashing during fast work when fibre is in the gut, which is all the justification I need to keep fussing about with nets in the float at 9pm.

Reading the warm-up ring through the feed window

There is another side to show day feeding that has nothing to do with gut health and everything to do with how a horse uses its energy. Big grain meals dump a wallop of starch into the small intestine, which can cause a blood sugar spike followed by a crash. Some horses get hot and silly on that cycle, others get lethargic and behind the leg. Neither is what you want when you are asking for a soft, connected canter into a combination.

When I feed smaller meals more often on the day, the energy release is more even. The horse has enough starch and calories circulating to feel forward and willing, without the jittery, look-at-everything behaviour that makes a show jump course feel like a hundred jumps instead of twelve. I think of it as managing the petrol tank: keep it topped up rather than running on fumes or flooding the carburettor. The horse stays engaged, the rider stays relaxed, and the judge or the clock sees a more consistent picture from the warm-up all the way through the finish.

This also matters more in an Australian summer. We compete in heat, and a January eventing run at somewhere like Melbourne International Three Day Event or even a smaller club day in the Adelaide Hills can mean 38 degree days with humidity climbing through the afternoon. A heavy feed in that heat sits like a brick in the gut. The horse goes off his water, his gut motility slows, and you have a recipe for a horse that does not want to leave the lorry park. Smaller feeds, offered at cool times of the day, keep things moving.

The night before is where the work happens

I have stopped pretending I am spontaneous about competition mornings. Every horse trial I roll up to now follows the same tired script, and that is fine, because tired scripts work. The night before a show I weigh out every feed the horse will get the next day into individual zip-lock bags. Breakfast, mid-morning snack, lunch, mid-afternoon, an early evening top up if I am staying overnight. Each bag has its label written in texta - MORNING, RIDE, AFTER XC, SUPPER. It looks faintly ridiculous. It has also saved my sanity more times than I can count.

Hay nets get pre-made the night before too. I do a half net at a time so each one takes about forty minutes to empty rather than twenty. By the time I am in the warm-up, the horse has had some fibre in his belly and the acid in his stomach has something to chomp on. There is research suggesting this helps reduce the risk of gastric splashing during fast work, which is all the justification I need to keep faffing about with nets in the float at 9pm.

This kind of prep is also a quiet check on the budget, because eventing is not cheap and every dollar spent on hard feed adds up across a season. I have written about the financial side of running my horses, including feed and the day-to-day running costs, over at the real cost of eventing and how I manage it, and the timing routine I just described is built around making sure nothing gets wasted or thrown out half eaten by a horse who has decided he does not like that particular batch of pellets.

What I actually take to the show in the feed bin

The kit list sounds excessive until you have once had a horse refuse to eat anything that smells like the float, and then it suddenly makes sense. I take six pre-portioned bags of hard feed for a one day event. If it is an overnight, I add another four. I take two hay nets already made up, one and a half kilos of chaff in a sealed bucket, and a separate container with any supplements - my gelding is on a gut balancer and electrolytes through summer.

I also pack a small amount of something tempting for after cross-country. Wet chaff with grated carrot and a splash of molasses does the job here, and the smell of it perks up a tired horse faster than anything else in my kit. It is also a useful gut filler because the horse has usually been fasting through exertion and adrenalin, and there is a real risk of starch going into an empty small intestine and causing a glucose spike the horse does not need. A sloppy, fibrous meal in the first hour after the cross-country phase is the kindest thing I can offer.

Water is the other thing I never assume will be available. I bring my own forty litre drum, and if the venue is somewhere unfamiliar I bring a second one. Australians love the assumption that horses will drink from any old tap, but between chlorinated town water, bore water that smells of iron, and the green slime that grows in troughs by mid summer, water tastes different at every venue and a fussy horse will clock it immediately. A horse that does not drink on a hot day is a horse that ties up, colics, or simply runs out of puff on the second water complex, and none of those outcomes are worth saving half an hour of float space.

What finally changed my mind about feeding small amounts

The thing that converted me was a specific horse, a specific event, and a fairly spectacular meltdown. I had fed my gelding his usual large breakfast before a Training level day at a major New South Wales venue. By the time we were halfway round the dressage, he was jigging at the bit, swinging his quarters, and utterly unable to settle. I scored the worst dressage test of our partnership, dragged him back to the float, and pulled his feed out for the rest of the day to see what would happen. He came right, popped clear in the show jumping, and went cross-country happy and willing. The lesson cost me a ribbon and taught me everything.

Since then I have kept the daylight meals small. Half a kilo of hard feed at a time, soaked, mixed with chaff, four times across competition day. Hay in front of the horse most of the time, either in the float or in the temporary stable. Water checked at least hourly. If the horse leaves a meal, I do not panic. The next one is never more than a few hours away. The pressure stays off the gut and off the rider.

There is a hidden benefit for me, the rider, too. When I am not hovering around with a giant bucket and watching the clock anxiously to see if the horse finishes it in time, I am calmer in my own body. A horse that is eating well, regularly, and with predictable timing reflects that ease back. I have learned to read my own stress in how quickly I shove hay nets into the float that morning. When the hands are steady and the routine feels normal, the day usually runs normal too.

Try halving your usual morning feed next time out and see how your horse feels in the warm-up. Pack a couple of extras in the bucket, pre-make the hay nets the night before, and pick a quiet corner of the lorry park to do your float prep rather than leaving it until five minutes before you need to be at the steward briefing. Your horse's gut, and frankly your own nerves, will thank you before you ever set foot in the warm-up arena.