Ginny's Horse Product Review

The topic of how to help a horse with arthritis is an important one for anybody with an aging horse. This post is very near and dear to my heart, because I LOVE old horses. My main riding horse, Bamboozal, is a 24-year-old Morgan gelding with mild arthritis. Even though he’s a little older and creakier than he used to be, he’s still getting out there and doing his thing on the trail! There are five basic components that help to make sure my arthritic horse is comfortable.

Five Ways to Help an Arthritic Horse

1. Stable management (FULL TURNOUT)
2. Weight/diet/hooves (HEALTHY WEIGHT AND REGULAR TRIM SCHEDULE)
3. Fitness (WALKING)
4. Gear (LIGHT WEIGHT TACK AND CAVALLO HOOF BOOTS)
5. Supplements and Support (MAJESTY FLEX WAFERS, POULTICE, ETC)

Stable Management of The Arthritic Horse

The first and MOST important aspect of your arthritic horse’s comfort is stable management. Before you do any injections, supplements or other expensive treatments, make sure your horse has a lifestyle that is optimal for joint health comfort. Horses with arthritis need full-time 24/7 turnout. An arthritic horse that is confined for any length of time will soon become stiff and achey.

Movement is SO important for arthritic horses (really all horses!) but especially for arthritic horses. They need to be able to move and walk around freely throughout the day and night. This will help their joints to remain comfortable and keep from getting stiff and painful.

Sometimes, all a horse needs is full turnout to feel a little better, so start there. Obviously, make sure herd dynamics are safe in turnout for your older horse. Also, make sure they’re not exposed to too much lush green grass too soon, if there are metabolic or obesity concerns.

Weight, Diet, Hooves and Equine Arthritis

This next component is a three-fer. Arthritic horses need to be at a healthy weight. For those of us with “easy keepers” or horses with metabolic issues that can lean toward obesity, it’s critically important to make sure our arthritic horses are at healthy weights. Everybody likes to see a fat and shiny horse, but with arthritis, even an extra 50, 75 pounds or more can make the difference between comfort and pain. The less unnecessary weight your horse has to tote around, the more comfortable he will be. If your horse has teeth issues or trouble keeping weight on, you won’t have to worry about this issue.

If your arthritic horse is overweight, look at the diet and see what can be done. Is your horse getting a ton of grain everyday? Is the pasture too lush? It may be necessary to put your horse on a healthier diet or even get them a grazing muzzle for spring and summer months.

Hoof care is also SO critical to an arthritic horse’s comfort. Your senior horse should be cared for and treated like a high-performance athlete. So often, people think that arthritic horses who are retired or semi-retired don’t need regular hoof care. The longer you go between trims for your arthritic horse, the more painful of a transition it is going to be. Keep your arthritic horse on a 6-8 week trim schedule for optimum comfort.

Fitness and Conditioning for the Arthritic Horse

Just because your horse is old and arthritic, that doesn’t mean they can’t be fit and conditioned! The best thing for arthritic horses is WALKING. Even Denny Emerson touts the supreme benefits of walking for his young high-performance horses. Lots of walking trail rides are a great idea. If your horse is comfortable to trot and canter, throw a little of that in there too, but the most important thing is lots of walking.

My older Morgan is a mostly-walking trail ride horse, although we do a decent amount of trotting to keep up with our gaited friend’s walk! Last year, we went on a group horse camping trip, and I was a little apprehensive/worried about his ability to keep up on the potentially strenuous, semi-rocky, slight-elevation change trails.

We were with gaited horses, so he definitely had to do some jogging to keep up with them, but the craziest thing was that he was probably in the best shape of most of the horses there, including those that much younger than him. I saw young horses puffing and sweaty at various points during the rides, and my little 13.2 senior Morgan gelding was fit as a fiddle and looking fresh! I attribute it to all the WALKING we had done the summer leading up to that trip.

Of course, this protocol is only for horses that are comfortable enough to do this amount of work. If your horse is lame or unsound even at a walk, talk to your vet about previcox or another treatment option.

Gear For The Arthritic Horse

When it comes to gear, think about paring down! Again, the less weight your horse has to carry, the more comfortable he will be. If you have a 50 lb western saddle, start shopping for something lighter. It will make a difference in your arthritic horse’s comfort. There are plenty of decent synthetic saddles on the market. I love Thorowgood english saddles, and I have Bamboozal in their short-back model, (he’s a little guy!)

Also, any time we’re going to go for long rides or on rocky and hard ground, I put Bamboozal in a full set of Cavallo hoof boots. Even though he has been barefoot his whole life and has super tough feet, I wanted to give him a little extra support and protection in his older years. I think he really appreciates it, because he just FLOATS in his boots. I like the Cavallos because they are super user-friendly, have a good breakover and stay on his feet! 

Supplements and Support to Help The Arthritic Horse

Finally, and least importantly, are supplements and other supportive products. The reason I say these are least important is that you should have all of the above issues squared away first. There is no sense in putting a horse on an expensive arthritis supplement if he spends half of his day or his whole day in a stall. You’ll have better luck improving his comfort by just turning him out! So, if you’ve already addressed the other four components, you can look into supplements and other products.

Since Bamboozal is a picky eater, I like to use Majesty Flex Wafers. It’s basically an arthritis supplement in cookie form. He can be really suspicious of supplements and medicinal items, but he’s none the wiser about these cookies. He thinks they’re delicious.

Another of my favorite support products for arthritic horses is Sore No More Poultice. This is my favorite poultice, because you don’t have to wrap the legs to use it. You can just slather it on. When I’m in camp, I don’t need additional chores to deal with like wrapping and unwrapping. After long and strenuous rides, I like to poultice his legs with Sore No More. It gives me a chance to give him a little TLC and feel his legs for any heat or swelling. He must love it too, because he totally zones out when he gets poulticed.

Managing Expectations with the Arthritic Horse

I believe that many arthritic senior horses still have a lot of life and love to give. That being said, it’s important to manage expectations. For some horses, it might mean no more jumping or an end to being competitive in their disciplines, but that’s okay. We can’t expect them to be high performance athletes for their whole lives.

The most important thing to me is spending quality time with my horse that is enjoyable for both of us. It’s not how far he can ride, how fast he can go around a barrel or how high he can jump. Bamboozal is a low-key trail horse, and that’s fine with me. In fact, it’s more than fine. It’s awesome!

Happy Trails!