Weighed In Ltd

30/10/2026

My horsey history. I've been sorting through some old photographs recently and it has been a reminder that I have been incredibly privileged to ride a variety of different horses in my lifetime that have all taught me different valuable lessons. It's also got me thinking about where my passion for weight management came from.

Up next is dearest Dot 🥰. He windsucked badly and being an older horse struggled with keeping weight on. His windsucking had also worn his front teeth down. Before starting to ride him we overhauled his nutrition and gave him adlib hay and mash feeds. We did not try to stop him windsucking. He had done it for so long that we felt stopping him would cause more problems than it solved.
Once we had figured out a good management routine for him he flourished and we almost ended up with him carrying too much weight!
The lesson: work with the horse and don't try to force change that may not suit it.

He ended up taking me round the open pony club tetrathlon championships at the end of that summer. He had the biggest heart and it broke mine 💔 when his owners wanted him back.

28/10/2026

I've been sorting through some old photographs recently and it has been a reminder that I have been incredibly privileged to ride a variety of different horses in my lifetime that have all taught me a variety of valuable lessons. It's also got me thinking about where my passion for weight management came from.

Looking back I think one key influencer was Herbie, a horse I took on loan in the early 2000s. He was a chunky appaloosa who very much enjoyed his food and carried a few extra pounds as a result.
My main concentration with him was exercise and he proved that exercise/fitness shed the pounds when coupled with a regulated intake of food. He was the first horse I had managed up until that point that I had to limit calorie intake for and gave me a good grounding for being disciplined with his work plan and diet.

He was an awesome little horse who gave me the eventing bug and carried me round my first season of 110cm (Open pony club at the time).

01/10/2026

Last weekend we went to a stay away party at the Cotswold Cup Championship.

Staying away for two nights gave a great opportunity to do a little research on weight whilst staying in a different environment and doing things slightly differently to a standard one day event.

The format:
- Arrive on Friday and stable.
- Saturday morning trot up, then we had our dressage and XC late afternoon
- Sunday was another trot up then SJ early afternoon, then home.

Robbie Williams gave some great insights 🧐
Weight at leaving home - 585kg
Weight on arrival after 100 miles and four hours on the lorry - 578kg ⬇️ 7kg
Weight on first morning 575kg ⬇️ 2kg
Weight after XC 565kg ⬇️ 10kg
Weight before leaving 574kg ⬆️ 9kg
Weight on arrival home after 3 hour journey on same route - 570kg ⬇️ 4kg

Caterpillar joined us for the weekend and showed a similar trend.

What this tells us. Travelling uses energy. Yes they also 💩 💩 💩 on the lorry but I always let mine have hay on the journey so they are refilling a little bit on the way.
Staying in unfamiliar surroundings perhaps keeps them on higher alert and they don't eat/drink as much.
Exercise uses fluid (sweat), and again they are pooing out stomach contents and not eating whilst they are moving whilst also burning calories.

Understanding some of these trends can help us manage our horses better before, during and after an event. Feeding strategically, hydration and trying to keep them as settled as possible.
Two days after we got home both horses were back to their 'leaving' weight.

11/09/2026

A great example of how knowing the accurate weight of your horse is very useful to inform feed ratios and diet management

A LITTLE REMINDER THAT FEEDING SHOULDN’T BE GUESSWORK

Recently, we felt one of our young competition horses needed a little extra, and our first thought was to add a supplement.

We spoke to Amy Stone at Equine products uk ltd 🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧 and, rather than simply selling us something, she first asked what he was already being fed, how much he was getting and his actual weight.

He’s currently fed on Saracen Horse Feeds Enduro-Performance, and once everything was calculated against his weight, it turned out he didn’t need another supplement at all - we simply needed to increase the amount of his existing feed.

It was a really good reminder of why having accurate information and knowledgeable people around you matters.

Having our Weighed In Ltd weighbridge on site means we know what our horses actually weigh rather than estimating. Combine that with quality feeds such as Saracen and access to knowledgeable professionals like Amy and the teams at Equine Products and Saracen, and we can make much more informed decisions about each horse’s nutrition.

Checking your horse’s weight alongside the manufacturer’s recommended feeding rate is so important. Their requirements will vary according to weight, workload, condition and individual needs — and adding another product isn’t necessarily the answer.

Sometimes the best advice is being told you don’t need to buy anything at all.

For us, good management is about taking the guesswork out of it wherever we can.

*For reference: Scooby is a 5-year-old, 16.2hh warmblood weighing 596kg and, at his current workload, requires 3.5kg of Saracen Enduro-Performance per day.

06/09/2026

On Friday I was joined on my rounds by my tech support so he could see the unique Weighed In readings portal in action in the field. This insight has enabled him to make some enhancements to the system to bring my amazing customers a better user experience 😊

29/08/2026

Regular dental check ups are a vital part of horse welfare and are a big contributing factor to weight management. If a horse cannot chew effectively they will either not ingest the food and/or not digest it optimally.
Robbie Williams has a front 🦷 missing and as a result he has to see belvoir_equine_vets twice a year to keep the corresponding lower tooth from growing into the gap and hindering his ability to chew properly.
Keep an eye on your horse and note if they are spitting food out after they have tried to chew it (quidding), if they suddenly start leaving food or if they are losing weight. A dental check up could be a good place to start.

27/08/2026

We've finally had a bit of rain and it's actually quite incredible how quickly nature is bouncing back from the hot dry summer.
Keep an eye on that grass growth and take precautionary action if needed.

24/08/2026

Giving our horses (and us) variety in work is vital to support physical and mental health. And we are so lucky to have such stunning surroundings made available to us and this particular ride offered plenty of hill work to get those muscles and cardio working to burn some calories and increase fitness 💪

22/08/2026

Back to eventing yesterday at the stunning
Robbie Williams just keeps getting better. LEADING again after dressage, we cracked the SJ yesterday finally with a CLEAR round, then he flew XC, so much so we had a slight detour, got time penalties and gave our win away 🫣
He only lost 6kg yesterday..... big difference was the heat. This was probably the coolest event he's done this year and it has shown with his hydration. He is also getting better at drinking between phases which is helping. He's just my 🦄