Equine Squamous Gastric Disease (ESGD) affects a majority of performance horses and a significant proportion of leisure horses, requiring management changes and medication for resolution.
Gastric ulcer welfare in horses represents a massive-scale hidden welfare problem where the prevalence of a painful condition is accepted as normal in performance horse populations. The pain of gastric ulceration affects horses' willingness to work, social interactions, feeding behavior, and overall demeanor - behavioral changes that are often attributed to training problems rather than recognized as pain indicators. Management systems that create ulcer-predisposing conditions (stabling, infrequent large meals, reduced roughage) are standard in performance disciplines, normalizing a disease that causes chronic abdominal pain in the majority of horses in these systems. The welfare improvement available through forage-focused management is substantial but requires changes to established routines that many trainers are reluctant to make.