Nutrition Newsletters

Body Condition Scoring your horse

A body condition score is an estimate of the amount of body fat stored on a horse and is made independent of the horse’s size, conformation and body weight. Condition scoring is an effective way of ensuring that horses are fed an optimum amount of dietary energy that will allow them to maintain a healthy bodyweight and sustain a high level of performance, an optimum growth rate or maximum reproductive efficiency depending on the class of animal being fed.

How Do I Condition Score My Horse?

Condition scoring of horses involves an assessment of certain parts of a horse’s body for ‘fatness’. The most commonly used sites are the along the neck, along the withers, the loin, tailhead, ribs and behind the shoulder as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: The sites on the horse used for the assessment of body condition

Once an assessment of these areas of the horse’s body is made, a system developed by researchers at the Texas A&M University, USA (Henneke et al. 1983), may be used to assign a ‘score’ to reflect your horse’s level of body fatness. This condition scoring system presents condition scores on a scale of 1 to 9, with 1 being extremely emaciated and 9 being extremely fat. A description of each of the scores is presented below. Please see the information file detailing Energy in a horse’s diet in the “Nutrition Information” section of the Equilize^TM program for a table showing the ideal body condition scores for horses undertaking various activities.

Score 1 – Poor

The horse is extremely emaciated. The bone structures of the neck, wither and shoulders are easily visible. The ribs, backbone and tailhead project prominently.

Score 2 – Very Thin

The horse is emaciated. The bone structures of the neck, wither and shoulders are faintly discernable. The structure of the ribs, backbone and tailhead are prominent.

Score 3 – Thin

The structure of the neck, wither and shoulders are accentuated. There is a slight fat cover over the ribs but they remain easy to see. The vertebrae of the backbone are easily discernable and the tailhead is prominent but the bone structure of the tailhead is not obvious.

Score 4 – Moderately Thin

The neck, wither and shoulders are not obviously thin. A faint outline of the ribs is visible, the backbone projects upward slightly and some fat can be felt around the tailhead. The prominence of the tailhead will depend on the horse’s conformation.

Score 5 – Moderate

The neck and shoulders blend smoothly into the body and the withers are rounded. The ribs cannot be seen but are easily felt, the area over the loin is flat and the fat deposited around the tailhead begins to feel spongy.

Score 6 – Moderately Fleshy

Fat is beginning to be deposited along the neck and withers and behind the shoulder. The ribs can still be felt but the fat cover over the ribs feels spongy. There may be a slight crease or gutter down the back and the fat around the tailhead feels soft.

Score 7 – Fleshy

Fat is deposited along the neck, wither and behind the shoulder. Individual ribs can still be felt but there is a noticeable filling of fat between the ribs. There may be a crease or gutter down the back over the loin area and the fat around the tailhead will be soft.

Score 8 – Fat

The neck is noticeably thickened with fat, the area along the wither is filled with fat and the area behind the shoulder is flush with the body. It is difficult to feel the ribs, there will likely be a gutter down the horses back and the fat around the tailhead will feel very soft.

Score 9 – Extremely Fat

The neck, wither and the area behind the shoulders are bulging with fat. Patchy fat can be seen over the ribs, there is an obvious gutter down the centre of the back and the area around the tailhead bulges with fat.