We love OTTB's.

They are such versatile horses with great brains and are so athletic.

Unfortunately racing life tends to start with nutrition that is polar opposite to the simple bucket and hay based diet that CHH feel best reflects the horses natural diet.

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Here is a wonderful story about how changing those dietary principles enabled Dora to shine in her post racing career. Many thanks to Lisa for sharing her and Dora's story...

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'Dora is a 16.1 ex racer. She raced on the flat, over hurdles and chased. Dora retired late 2023 because she had tied up a few times.

She had been generally tight and difficult throughout her racing career seemingly didn’t enjoy this job anymore.

Before retiring Dora had two wind operations and had been steroid injected from head to hoof to try to combat her issues.

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Dora came to me in February 2024. She arrived safely but was a little sweaty and wound up. She had been in a small barn with no turnout for three months prior to moving. With us she was quarantined for 2 weeks with 10 mins out in the arena.

Dora naturally was quite exuberant during the first 10 minutes turnout but then tied up.

This is when her issues started to emerge, and we started our journey with CHH.

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I have owned horses (including one I bred) that tied up in the past, so I was aware of diet/management/exercise routines to manage this issue but with Dora my usual tactics were not up to the job.

A friend of mine pointed me in the direction of CHH UK so I started feeding the simple bucket Sue recommends; Premium MVA a little beet, micronised linseed, and salt alongside unlimited late cut hay.

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We then saw Dora gradually improve over the following weeks.

Next, I had my physio give Dora a treatment. I cannot list every spasm or area of tightness she found, let’s put it this way, from Dora’s head to tail there wasn’t many areas that weren’t rock solid.

Dora’s neck, glutes, hamstrings, and SI were all of concern. My physio recommended I get some steroid injections asap suggesting her SI as a starting point.

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I listened but did not completely agree. I felt confident with the exercise program and feeding/management regime I had planned I could fix Dora’s issues without medical intervention.

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I started to turn Dora out into a small grass paddock for an hour per day hoping to build up to a couple of hours by March. After just a few days she started showing symptoms of stringhalt. I started researching and came across posts and research referring to PSH (pasture-associated stringhalt).

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I took her straight off the pasture and put her back in the sand turnout with stabling overnight. From then on, her only forage was late cut hay. Within 48 hours the stringhalt disappeared unless she was asked to back up.

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I would not have believed this if I had not have witnessed it myself. At this point I introduced GrazeEzy. Dora was kept off the pasture for a couple of weeks then we tried pasture turnout again but It was a disaster!

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A huge down-pour came out of nowhere while she was out just for a couple of hours. The next morning, she was hobbling as though she was so sore in all four hooves and tight through her whole body.

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Again, I took her off all pasture, gave her some Bute and within 36 hours she was completely sound again. Alarm bells were ringing telling me this horse cannot cope with and pasture turnout.

This was when AlleviateC was added at higher levels for a week then dropped to 50g as maintenance.

Since then I have figured out that when we have a very dry spell Dora can cope with an hour or two on grass but if the weather is wet and the temperatures are fluctuating, we have problems.

For now, Dora is kept in her sand turnout and stable with exercise every day, even if it’s only 10 mins walking in hand, movement is key.

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Over the following months we built up Dora’s fitness, out hacking, in the school, and lots of in hand and pole work.

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