There are two groups of horses that are assessed and therefore valued to a large extent on their looks, conformation and the way they are "turned out"; the halter or "in hand" horse and the sales weanling or yearling. There are vast sums of money riding in the balance that literally can be made or lost depending on the job that the feeder and fitter does. We have all heard the adage "fat is a pretty color" and seen that some sales and halter horses are simply fed all they want to eat and gotten too fat. In the modern sales and show arena simply fat is far from being enough. To be really successful in fitting sales horses and halter horses the "fitter" must be able to differentiate between fit and fat.

It may come as a surprise that one would consider the young show horse and the Thoroughbred sales weanling and yearling in the same context. But let's face it, the horse sale is a horse show and many times horses are worth more on sale day than they will be the rest of their lives. Fitting these horses is a combination of superior nutrition, superior health management, superior and specific exercise and superior genetics, tempered with more hard work and attention to detail than most people are willing to do. In the following paper we will outline what has worked in the preparation of halter horses for the major Quarter Horse shows, and in the preparation of sales weanlings, yearlings and broodmares for the major Thoroughbred sales. In consideration of this topic we specifically cast anabolic steroids in a very negative light as they as unnecessary, unethical and often detrimental to the long term use of the horse.

The Weanling

Preparing a weanling is perhaps the biggest challenge of all. When one prepares a weanling for a show or sale it is critical to understand the nutrient requirements of the horse and the critical balance between feed intake and exercise as they impact on condition and soundness.

The weanling feeding program should be based on a balanced ration using palatable, easily assimilated nutrient sources that meet the weanling's requirements for protein, energy, minerals and vitamins. All too often people fall into the trap of feeding all-grain feeds to weanlings that may encourage fattening but do little to ensure optimum growth and bone development. It is crucial that people understand that "HIGH" PROTEIN DOES NOT CAUSE BONE PROBLEMS! And in fact more cases of acquired flexural deformities and developmental orthapedic

disease (DOD) are caused by improper mineral balance and over feeding energy than from any other nutritional cause.

The amount of feed that an individual foal/weanling will tolerate is extremely dependent upon the individual and

it is crucial to adjust individual feeding levels based on individual performance (growth rate and degree of fatness). I would usually expect to be feeding a weanling intended for the futurity or weanling sales a minimum of 1 lb of feed per month of age right up until the time of the event. In general one would be best served to feed a 15 - 16 % protein concentrate to these horses in addition to really good quality clover or lucerne hay that was harvested in early stages of maturity. A high quality/high energy hay is needed for these horses as this maximizes the

utilization of fibrous feeds in meeting the energy requirements of these horses and as such decreases the amount of starch the weanling has to deal with. Also, in using a high quality, early cut hay one tends to minimize the

appearance of gut-fill that is often associated with a mature hay of high lignin content. Often hay intake is restricted just prior to the show or sale to reduce a pot bellied appearance.

In selecting the appropriate concentrate feed for the weanling it is important that the total nutrient profile of the feed be considered, not just the protein concentration. All too often, due to formulation errors on the part of the feed manufacturer or misuse of a feed (primarily cutting a prepared feed with oats) by the consumer, the nutrient/calorie ratio of grain mixes fed to weanlings is all wrong. Consumers should be educated to the fact that the nutrient profile of a feed designed for a specific class of horses is critical and that by "tinkering" with a feed this balance of nutrients is destroyed. Similarly, feeds formulated for older horses do not get the job done with respect to macro and micro-mineral intake when fed at appropriate levels to meet the young horse's energy requirements. For one thing, a weanlings appetite is much less than an adult horse so you need to have higher concentrations of critical nutrients. Feeds containing extruded or micronized barley and corn are very useful, because the energy in the grain is much better assimilated after extrusion. An example of this type of feed is EASIFEED Phase 1.

A feed used for weanling sales or show prep should contain added fat from oil or sunflower seeds. This fat is a very concentrated source of energy and helps you minimise the grain intake as well as putting a shine on the coat.

Beyond the feed trough the real art involved in fitting weanlings is the exercise and "rubbing" they receive. Although not advocating routine lungeing for the sales or show weanling, judicious use of free lungeing ("round-penning"), ponying and hand walking can be very useful tools depending on the individual. Foals run, romp and play nearly from birth, and to think that a careful program of forced exercise is detrimental and risky is folly. Daily grooming, rinsing with warm water, braiding or banding of manes and conditioning of tails are all necessary for weanlings if optimum fitness is to be achieved.

With respect to turn-out there are several factors to be considered and somewhat of a difference between what works for the sales weanling and what works for the show weanling. In general, turn-out for the futurity baby works to a limited extent. If hard feed intake is limited and weanlings are turned out on good pasture, they tend to get a little belly on them; on the other hand, if weanlings are turned out for a little time on good pasture or in barren paddocks, this time out can be very effective in encouraging exercise. One must let the individual serve as a

guide in this respect. Some halter futurity babies will tolerate pasture turnout and some will not. For sales weanlings this appears to be a little less critical as it is more acceptable for sales weanlings to carry both a little hair and a little belly.

Sales and show weanlings should be rugged as soon as night temperatures drop to below 10 degrees. In many cases the rug and hood serve to make the hair lay, as much as to make the hair remain short. One downside of rugging is that the weanling is often turned out after the sale with no hair to withstand the winter chills. It seems that hair growth and shedding for the weanling are somewhat heritable as is hair quality in general. The use of artificial lights may be of value in some programs. Day length should remain a constant 15 hours through the

use of lights if they are to be used. One negative aspect of the use of lights for weanlings is that they appear to become refractory to the lights over time (in other words, you can only fool mother nature for so long). In the past we have seen weanlings under lights that as yearlings were a real challenge to get fit the next spring. I guess if someone else buys the weanling this is their problem but if for one reason or another the weanling does not sell, the problem then becomes yours.

Feeding at least 125 ml oil daily( or a higher fat feed ) and a coat conditioner such as EQUIVIT BIO-BLOOM

for a month before the sale will also really help the coat. Show and sale weanlings should receive at least 60g of added fat per feeding and as much as 300g of fat per day has been fed in some instances when it was critical that more energy intake be achieved without increasing starch (grain) intake. If horses are gradually adjusted to fat

intake, a great deal of energy may be fed to the weanling in the form of fat. If you have a weanling with physitis or other DOD it is preferable to feed a high fat rather than a high grain diet. Other useful nutritional tools include using rice pollard in the ration and selecting for very immature hays that have maximum digestibility .

Weanlings should be on a rigorous deworming program. Weanlings should be dewormed every 30 - 60 days alternating between anthelmintics.

The last thought for the weanling deals with weaning time. In general we have found 5 months of age to be the most ideal time to wean, all things considered. However, it is best to let the individual weanling tell you when to wean. If a weanling is top-heavy and too fat or starts to get erect in the pasterns or show severe physitis, there are good reasons for weaning as early as 3 months of age so that you can carefully control nutrient intake. A general rule of thumb is to wean a foal at least 45 days before a sale or futurity or if that is too early for late foals, will wean 5 days before a futurity. Forty- five days gives adequate time to get the weanling over the post-weaning slump and into good shape, and five days pre-futurity weaning does not give the weanling time to fall apart.

Feeding and Fitting the Yearling

Yearlings in some ways are easier to fit than weanlings. Since we are in most cases talking about horses that are at least 12 months of age there are fewer skeletal wrecks that we can precipitate when we start our fitting or "prep" program.

Comments made concerning hay type and quality for the weanling apply to the yearling as well. however if you have a short, fat filly that needs to lose weight choose a lower energy grass hay or oaten chaff rather than rich lucerne or clover hay.

As for the "grain" portion of the ration, the amount of fat that is appropriate to use is going to be highly individual. This is due to the fact that there are two main reasons that we are using fat to begin with. First there is the hair effect and second there is the energy effect. The hair effect is easy, 60g per day of vegetable fat. The energy source rationale is the interesting application of fat, and also lupins which are discussed below. The use of high levels of fat intake in the yearling is to reduce the amount of starch that must be fed to achieve a specified energy intake. When you reach 5 kg of hard feed intake in the yearling, start to really consider the advantages of supplemental fat.

Big, rugged, raw boned yearlings can take as much as 750 ml of vegetable oil per day with absolutely no detrimental effect. Again feeding BIO-BLOOM will help get the gleaming coat you need to stand out from the field on the day and will reduce the time you need to spend grooming the yearling. That saves staff time and costs.

In addition to fat, many of prep and show rations will contain lupins. Unlike the weanling, there is a real possibility of laminitis and starch over-load colic in the yearling. By using lupins as a feed ingredient, one can reduce the amount of starch that a horse has to consume while keeping at relatively high levels of energy intake. It is probable that lupins, a source of readily digestible fibre, is digested predominantly in the hind-gut and absorbed as volatile fatty acids therefore reducing the starch/glucose load, the amount of starch that may enter the hind gut un- digested, and contributing to the maintenance of cecal homeostasis. All of these results are positive! Extruded feeds or components in the feed are also useful - they don't reduce the starch intake but they do ensure most of the digestion takes place in the small intestine thus reducing the risk of colic and laminitis.

Fitting Tools

The essentials of fitting halter and sale horses really only start with the feed bucket. Hair quality and athletic appearance are crucial if a professional appearance is to be achieved. The exercise program that one uses to get horses fit may be very different from farm to farm and indeed even from horse to horse.

Other possibilities for exercise techniques include hand walking, ponying, swimming, use of a mechanical horse walker and treadmilling. The traditional method of choice for fitting Thoroughbred yearlings is hand walking. It appears that that the main fitness achieved using this methodology occurs in the person doing the walking rather than in the horse. However, there are some horses that for one reason or another cannot take a more rigorous exercise program. You also need to teach a horse to walk so that it strides out whilst under the watchful eye of the potential purchaser at the sales. Horses are walked from twenty minutes to an hour each at a brisk walk and where possible, up and down hills. One positive aspect of hand-walking is that the horses are really taught to lead! Lead ponies are really effective for fitting sales horses and halter horses if one has an appropriate place to pony the horses. Horses may be ponied at the walk and the trot and if the pasture or paddock is big enough the yearling can be ponied in a straight line avoiding the lateral stress on the legs which may occur when some other methods are used. Swimming is beyond the reach of most people but is effective for sales or show horses that may have borderline soundness.

Mechanical horse walkers are becoming popular as they are labour saving devices that allow the yearling to get more work than if they were hand walked. One disadvantage of the walker is the tendency for horses that have been fit on a walker to drag along when being led. Treadmills are great tools if used judiciously. I think that horses can be fit very effectively on the treadmill at the walk and trot and the newer, high speed treadmills are fairly easy on a horse's legs. When we use a treadmill for fitting yearlings or show horses, we use sessions of five minutes to begin with and if the treadmill is adjustable, a 6% incline. One observation concerning the use of the treadmill is the tendency for horses to roll their shoulders rather than really breaking cleanly over and bending their knees.

As with any exercise method, one should be alert to changes in the feet and legs which may indicate an impending soundness problem or blemish. Common problems which necessitate reducing work load or backing completely off the exercise program include: splints, windgalls, thoroughpins, joint swelling in any joint but particularly the fetlocks, knees, hocks and stifles, active physitis, foot soreness, tendonitis or any signs of lameness. It is essential that horses that are receiving a great deal of feed be exercised EVERY DAY. People seem to be inclined to think that tying up is strictly a problem affecting performance horses, but there are a significant number of halter horses that tie up due to the large starch intakes that are characteristic for these horses and the tendency for people to skip exercise days therefore setting a horse up for a management induced episode of tying up.

Another caution for horses being prepared for halter competition and sales is heat stress. Because most of these horses are prepared in the summer months, heat stress and even heat stroke are real possibilities. Careful observation of the horse can prevent this problem. Horses that are not sweating when worked hard should be stopped immediately. This is particularly true in areas where anhydrosis is common.

During and after an exercise bout is an ideal time to work on conformational deficits. Horses with thick cresty necks should be exercised in a neck sweat and then be tied in the stall after exercise for a cooling out period. The shape of a horse's neck and therefore the balance of a horse can be improved significantly using a sweat. Likewise, there are individuals that may benefit from a throatlatch sweat or even a full shoulder sweat. Horses that are particularly coarse in the throat benefit from wearing a throat collar all of the time (care should be taken that the mane is protected from the collar when these are used). Another quite useful tool for fitting horses is a set of side-reins and a roller. Horses with thin weedy necks, ewe necked horses and horses that appear to have their necks put on up side down (thin on top and a belly to the neck below) should be exercised in side-reins. This makes the horse arch the neck and can significantly change the appearance of the shoulder and neck. When reins are first used they should be adjusted loosely and only after the horse has worn them a couple of times should they be tightened and the horse be made to really go to work.

Regular foot care is also a must for horses to be shown at halter and for sale horses. By convention, Thoroughbred sales horses are shod in front and barefoot behind with the exception of weanlings which are sold barefoot and two-year-old in training horses which are sold shod all the way around. Even though biotin, zinc and methionine supplementation eg EQUIVIT BIO-BLOOM may help some horses with bad feet, nothing can take the place of regular trimming well beforehand in terms of producing a good foot on a sales or show horse.

Obviously there are as many tricks of the trade as there are trainers and what techniques work for some may not work for others. The important thing is to design a program and stick to it. Modifications may be necessary along the way to suit individsual needs, but the critical aspect of getting this job done is daily attention to detail. One should not get caught in the trap of thinking that there is some magical feed ingredient that is going to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. Great genetics, good feed and hard work beat steroids, poor genetics and lack of preparation every time. Remember you are preparing a future athlete, not fattening a lamb for market.