24/06/2026
This is interesting especially owning one horse who suffers badly with the heat and one who isn't phased 🤓
Everyone is talking about the heat right now.
Fresh water, shade, forage and a healthy dose of common sense applied to each individual horse should always prevail.
What is perhaps worth considering is that the temperatures currently causing concern across the UK are entirely normal summer temperatures in many parts of the world, where horses cope perfectly well year after year.
So why do some horses struggle while others appear comfortable and resilient?
One possibility is that heat itself is not always the problem. Sometimes heat simply exposes underlying metabolic weaknesses that are already present.
Many horses that struggle during hot weather are often the same horses that show signs of metabolic imbalance throughout the rest of the year.
This can look very different from horse to horse:
• Mud fever
• Sallenders and mallenders
• Sweet itch
• Footiness or laminitic tendencies
• Insulin dysregulation
• Headshaking
• Itchy noses and excessive rubbing
• Photosensitivity
• Seasonal allergies or coughing
• Sneezing
• Sacroiliac dysfunction
• Poor topline development
• Recurrent colic episodes
• General sensitivity and inflammation
Some horses show one sign. Others show many.
A healthy hindgut is designed to ferment fibre efficiently and maintain a stable internal environment. When hindgut function becomes compromised and acidity increases, normal biological processes can be affected.
Interestingly, flies are naturally attracted to sugar and fermentation products, which may help explain why some horses seem to attract every fly in the county while others standing beside them are barely bothered.
When the metabolism is already under pressure, additional stressors such as prolonged heat can become much harder to manage.
The foundations remain remarkably simple:
✓ Unlimited access to fresh water
✓ Ad-lib forage, ideally mature, late-cut hay rich
in structural fibre
✓ Freedom to move as much as possible
✓ Management that supports hindgut and
metabolic health throughout the year
Heat does not create metabolic dysfunction. But it can reveal it 💡
As always, every horse is an individual perhaps the question is not simply how hot it is, but how resilient the horse’s metabolism is when temperatures rise - food for thought as always.
Stay safe. Love to all.
