Knowledge
Nutrition Focus
Lorna Edgar – specialist equine nutritionist
Yard Focus Tommy Severn Four horses’ quirks & individual needs As yard visits only really started in June, I have not had too much of an opportunity to do a Yard Focus, but as I began my travels again, I was back at Longdole Polo Club, near Cirencester, this time looking at 3 goal player, Tommy Severn’s horses, with his grooms Sammy Kerslake and Julia Hyslop – total Yard Focus material!
Tommy has 10 horses in work, but here we have focused on four of Tommy’s favourites that all have their own quirks and individual needs! Longdole Polo Club allow all their horses ad lib forage and they encourage as much turn out as possible. With no exception to the rules, Sammy and Julia very much keep
to this ideal management for Tommy’s busy string of horses. On polo days they all travel with haylage nets, both to and from polo, and on arrival at a ground they will all have a good pick of grass as they are fussy about eating chaff, so the grass is a compromise to satisfy their need to eat an extra bit of fibre. As you can imagine I absolutely love this type of management! The horses are all fed electrolytes every day in the hot weather we are experiencing as I write this article in early August. On days when they are playing or working hard, they’re given either in a wet feed or in their water buckets. During my last visit we discussed the benefits of pre-loading with electrolytes before they play polo, so administering them when they arrive at the grounds – allowing the ideal two-hour window before they play to enhance performance. So, let me introduce you to the chosen four…
Lovelocks Mourhino
Diet • Two round bowl Stubbs scoops of Baileys No.17 Conditioning Mix per day • Three measuring mugs of Baileys Stud Balancer per day • Two measuring mugs of Baileys Outshine per day • Half a scoop of Fibre-Beet per feed
Photography courtesy of Lorna Edgar
A 15.2hh 10-year-old who has been with Tommy for two years. She is a very sweet mare and really easy to have around the yard, she maintains condition easily and is very easy to feed for energy. When she first came into work, like all Tommy’s horses, she was fed Baileys No.6 All-Round Endurance Mix to provide the calories of a conditioning feed whilst keeping a lid on any excitable/fizzy energy that may bubble over at any point! She continued on AllRound Endurance Mix during lockdown, and once a few chukkas were played she moved onto Conditioning Mix – thus increasing the starch intake of the diet without adding straight oats.
A 15.2hh 10-year-old who has been with Tommy for two years
Cliquot
A 15.2hh, 14-year-old from Ellerston. She came to Tommy this season from Charlie Hanbury, quickly settling into the string – and already reaching the top four! Although an easy and straight forward mare at home, she can become quite hot and ‘stressy’ at polo. She has maintained her condition well so far, but if polo becomes very busy for a long period of time, we may have to increase her calorie intake a little more. She has been playing well on the Conditioning Mix, but the backup plan if she becomes too hot at polo would be to focus on a lower starch diet, as with Toast. Diet • Two heaped Stubbs scoops of No.17 Conditioning Mix per day • Three measuring mugs of Stud Balancer per day • Two measuring mugs of Outshine per day • Half a scoop of Fibre-Beet per feed 62
Polo Times, September 2020
www.polotimes.co.uk
