Gastric ulcers affect the majority of performance horses and are a significant welfare concern requiring management changes including feeding practices, exercise schedules, and stress reduction.
Gastric ulcers represent a pervasive and largely preventable welfare problem in managed horses. The core issue is a mismatch between the management practices of modern horse keeping and the feeding ecology horses evolved for. A horse left without forage for more than two to four hours accumulates unbuffered stomach acid that erodes the squamous mucosa of the upper stomach. High-grain, low-forage diets and irregular meal schedules compound this risk. The prevalence of ulcers in racehorses and competition horses reflects the welfare costs of management systems prioritized for performance. Prevention through continuous forage access, reduced grain proportion, and adequate turnout is both more effective and more humane than repeated treatment cycles.