Equine gastric ulcer syndrome (EGUS) affects the majority of performance horses and a significant proportion of leisure horses. Prevention through management changes is far more effective than repeated treatment.
EGUS causes chronic, persistent gastric pain that affects millions of horses in managed work. The connection between management practices and ulcer development is well-established - horses evolved for continuous foraging on high-fibre, low-starch diets, not the intermittent large grain meals of conventional stable management. The pain of EGUS contributes to the behavioural 'problems' that cause horses to be labelled difficult, reluctant, or bad-tempered - often resulting in harsher training responses to what is actually pain behaviour. The welfare solution is management reform that aligns horse keeping with equine nutritional physiology: unlimited hay, reduced grain, and reduced management stress.