Evidence-based prevention strategies for equine gastric ulcers address feeding management, exercise protocols, and environmental factors that reduce acid exposure and mucosal damage.
Gastric ulcer prevention is welfare-superior to treatment — preventing chronic pain rather than managing it after it develops. The preventive management principles are straightforward and evidence-based: continuous forage access, limited fasting, targeted pre-exercise alfalfa supplementation, and prophylactic omeprazole during high-risk periods. The challenge is that competitive pressures and stabling norms often conflict with prevention-optimal management — horses in intensive training are frequently fed meals rather than maintained on continuous forage, creating the fasting-associated acid exposure that causes ulcers. Welfare-centered stable management redesigns routine practice around prevention principles rather than accepting ulcers as a normal consequence of competitive work.