Happy Horse Nutrition

First. Second. Third. Fifth. Sixth. IN THE MELBOURNE CUP!
On 3 November 2026, Ciaron Maher Racing made history, becoming the first stable in 166 years to train the Melbourne Cup trifecta, with an extraordinary FIVE of the first SIX horses across the finish line.
How on earth do you achieve something like that? And what is Ciaron Maher Racing doing differently?
There are many answers to that question, but one thing they do very differently is how they feed their horses.
And that's something Dr Nerida knows quite a bit about, because she's the equine nutritionist responsible for developing and continually refining the stable's feeding programmes!
Following this incredible Melbourne Cup result, we're bringing back one of our most loved Happy Horse Nutrition conversations, with Katrina Anderson, Head of Sport Science, and Joshua Kadlec-Cavanagh, Head of Data and Performance at CMR.
Together with Dr Nerida, they take us behind the scenes of a stable willing to challenge some of the most ingrained traditions in Australian Thoroughbred racing, particularly the belief that racehorses need large amounts of grain to perform at their best.
From feeding lucerne before exercise and providing continuous access to hay, to reducing grain intake, improving starch digestibility and monitoring faecal pH, they explore how a completely different approach to racehorse nutrition is changing the health and performance of these incredible equine athletes.
They also dig into the changes observed in hindgut microbiome populations, gastric ulcers, tying-up, hoof soreness and behaviour, including the heart-warming story of Saint George, whose troublesome feet improved and he got on with winning a bunch of races following a change to his diet.
And there's data! Lots of data!
Since this interview was originally recorded, Dr Nerida and Katrina have presented findings from the stable at the International Congress on Equine Exercise Physiology in Tokyo (ICEEP 2026), showing substantial improvements in faecal pH following dietary changes, alongside fascinating relationships between grain intake, gut health and racing performance. Nerida shares some of those findings in a new introduction to this episode.
Of course, nutrition is only one piece of the complex puzzle that goes into producing a Melbourne Cup winner, let alone a trifecta!
But this is a brilliant example of how feeding horses in a way that honours their evolution and digestive physiology, supports their gut health and improves their welfare can absolutely goes hand in hand with extraordinary performance.
And that is a story well worth sharing again.
Learn more about Dr Nerida's approach to equine nutrition at MyHappy.Horse and at https://equilize.com.au
🏇🏻 And to really look in detail at your racehorse’s diet, download the MyHappy.Horse nutrition app: https://apps.apple.com/au/app/myhappy-horse/id6633422324

Can lunging your horse actually be harder work than riding? Does speed strengthen bones or damage them? And could restricting calories make an already good-doing horse even thriftier?
Coming to you from Tokyo, Japan, Dr Nerida is joined by equine exercise physiologist Dr Brian Nielsen and researcher Renee Harbowy to unpack some of the fascinating science presented at the 12th International Conference on Equine Exercise Physiology (ICEEP).
After five days, around 80 research presentations and some very full brains, the three sit down to share the research that caught their attention, challenged their thinking, and might just change the way we feed, train and manage our horses.
They explore new research on lunging and exercise intensity, the complicated relationship between speed, bone strength and injury risk, why training young horses isn't necessarily a bad thing, and how mitochondria respond to calorie restriction — with some interesting implications for managing overweight horses.
Of course, there's plenty of horse nutrition too, including the relationship between grain feeding, hindgut health and racing performance, with a look at some fascinating data presented from Ciaron Maher Racing.
It's a slightly different episode, with plenty of science, a few laughs and a behind-the-scenes look at what happens when you put a couple of hundred equine researchers in a room together for a week.
And perhaps most importantly, it's a reminder that good horse management rarely comes down to just one thing, and that behind the science is a whole community of researchers working incredibly hard to make life better for our horses.

Learn more about the 2026 International Conference on Equine Exercise Physiology (ICEEP), Tokyo, Japan:
https://iceep2026.org/
 📲 Download the MyHappy.Horse nutrition app to check your horse’s diet is properly balanced ⁠https://apps.apple.com/au/app/myhappy-horse/id6633422324⁠
💖 And if you found this episode helpful, please follow the Happy Horse Nutrition Podcast and  share it with a horse owning friend 🙏🏼

Orla is back for another Happy Horse Nutrition Q&A, although this one very quickly becomes a reverse Q&A, a Pony Camp debrief and a collection of slightly random, but useful, horse nutrition observations.
We talk about a stomach with a pH of 1.2, why water matters more for gastric health than we sometimes give it credit for, and how Dr Nerida, yes the PhD equine nutritionist, managed to give her own horse colic!
Nerida and Orla also revisit straw for horses with EMS and weight issues, why the right low-energy forage is essential for feeding hay 24/7, and why it is so essential to feed a properly balanced diet when using straw.
Then they head back down the ryegrass rabbit hole with a fascinating real-world case of a horse showing extreme behavioural changes on ryegrass pasture, and what happened when his owner added a targeted mycotoxin binder.
Plus horse drinking habits, Pony Camp survival, and apparently… kangaroos can get staggers too.
As always, there’s science, horse geekery, plenty of side tracks and lots of laughs plus hopefully a few things that make you look at the way your own horse eats, drinks and behaves just a little differently.
📲 To check your horse’s diet and KNOW you are feeding right, download the MyHappy.Horse app ⁠https://apps.apple.com/au/app/myhappy-horse/id6633422324⁠
💛 We’d love if you would leave us a rating, follow the show and share this episode with a friend, it truly helps us get this information in front of more horse owners.
🩺 And if you’d like to get in touch with Orla, Orla.lyons@randlab.com.au

Ever looked at the feeding recommendations on a bag of horse feed or a bucket of supplements and wondered who decides how much you should feed? And do you really need to follow them?
In this episode of the Happy Horse Nutrition Podcast, Dr Nerida takes you behind the scenes of horse feed and supplement formulation, drawing on more than 25 years of experience developing products and writing the feeding recommendations that appear on their labels.
You will learn why some feeds recommend feeding large amounts while others recommend very little, how those feeding rates are calculated, and why feeding less than the recommended amount could leave your horse short of essential vitamins and minerals.
We also explore what happens when you combine fortified feeds with vitamin and mineral supplements, why a 30 g supplement isn't necessarily better or worse than a 150 g supplement, and why feeding half the recommended dose of a gut health or hoof supplement might mean you're wasting your money.
Plus, what should you do if your horse gets fat on the recommended feeding rate, or needs more feed than the manufacturer suggests?
And Nerida mentions several times that the best way to know exactly what your horse is getting from its diet, is to run an diet analysis thorugh MyHappy.Horse, the equine nutrition app designed to help you feed with confidence and accuracy!
You can check out MyHappy.Horse here 🩵
https://apps.apple.com/au/app/myhappy-horse/id6633422324

Knowing better is one thing. Actually changing what we do is something else entirely. In Part 2 of this conversation, Dr Nerida and veterinarian and social worker Dr Katherine Goldberg go deeper into the very human reasons horse management practices can be so hard to change.
They use one of the simplest horse welfare changes as the perfect case study: feeding hay before you ride. Why does something so easy, with such clear benefits for our horses around gastric health, comfort and behaviour, still meet resistance? 
Then Nerida and Katherine jump back on after Pony Camp for a real-world update and put the psychology into practice, looking at decisional balance, why being the only person doing something differently can feel hard, and why sometimes the best way to create change is simply to keep modelling the better way, loudly and positively. 
Connect with Dr Katherine Goldberg Dr Katherine works with horse owners through Horses First Stewardship, helping people navigate horse care, feeding, track systems and those tricky situations where you know something needs to change, but you’re not quite sure what to do next. 
Website: ⁠https://www.horsesfirststewardship.com⁠   Email: ⁠horsesfirststewardship@gmail.com