Our Healthiest Body Condition rosettes are rolled out UK wide

The Horse Trust funds some very important veterinary research work into health conditions that can affect our horses, and many other horses as well. Conditions such as osteoarthritis, strangles, colic and liver disease. If the impact of the work we fund is going to make a difference to all horses, not just the ones in our care, it is important that we understand how people think, and how we can best give them information in a way that changes their behaviour towards horses for the better. Our Healthiest Body Condition campaign is helping to achieve this.

One of our most influential pieces of work is understanding the way people see overweight horses (or don’t, as the case may be!). How can we help people see that their horses are an unhealthy weight and help them to do something about this? A specialist researcher at the University of Liverpool has been working with the Horse Trust team to come up with innovative ways to support horse owners to keep their horses a healthy weight.

Our Healthiest Body Condition campaign in show rings around the country was very well received in 2019 and will be rolled out even wider in 2020. Our special award rosettes not only shout out about the work we do, but also are very desirable and (dare we say!) “bling” and they recognise and reward people who take proper care of their horses’ condition. In making these prizes more widespread, we use specialist techniques to help more people take care of their horses better. This is what we do at the Home of Rest, and we want as many other people as possible to do the same.