As pastures become dry and die off during the cold winter months, the nutritional value of any grass left drops significantly. However, your horse still needs these vital vitamins and minerals all year round.

While each vitamin is important in ensuring your horse is in tip-top condition, vitamin K is particularly crucial for horses’ bone density when they are undergoing regular strenuous exercise. For sporting or racehorses, having the strongest and healthiest bones will ultimately help give you the best results and aid in preventing injury.

WHAT IS VITAMIN K?

Equine Nutrition Assistant for Hygain, Holly Mills, explains there are actually three different types of Vitamin K. “Vitamin K1 is a transient instantaneous product of photosynthesis that can be found in green pasture, K2 can be made in the horse’s body from the liver, and then K3 is made synthetically as a supplement.

“Vitamin K is generally best known for blood clotting. It’s important that any animal, humans included, has enough vitamin K in their diet so that their blood clots effectively. So, if you get a cut, you don’t bleed out because your vitamin K levels are normal. Vitamin K3 will also do this, even if it’s not naturally made by nature or the body.

“Vitamin K is also involved in bone density and bone formation,” continues Holly. “Hygain produces a product called Bonafide, which acts as a replacement for the vitamins K1 and K2 that a horse may be lacking in their diet. Mainly what we talk about with Bonafide is it activates a compound called osteocalcin. Without sufficient vitamin K, this compound can’t do its job properly. Osteocalcin is responsible for binding minerals and protein to actually form bone. So if there is a deficiency of vitamin K it won’t work as well, whereas with sufficient vitamin K it forms proper, strong optimal bone development.”

Unfortunately, a horse with a vitamin K1 and K2 deficiency won’t display any visible symptoms. And with winter currently gripping Australia, the chances of most horses having lower than normal levels of vitamin K1 and K2 without the owners being aware are pretty high. “You really wouldn’t be able to tell unless you were getting scans, or unless they had constant fractures, or if their blood wasn’t clotting properly,” says Holly.

“A lot of people will say ‘my horse will tell me if it’s deficient in something’ and in some cases such as with copper or zinc that can be true. But when we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty micronutrients and vitamins, it isn’t that obvious and it’s also something that not everyone would consider either.”

THE GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER…

“Naturally, horses get it from pasture. If they’re on green pasture, they should be totally fine in terms of their vitamin K1 and K2 intake. As soon as that pasture starts to die out or gets cut for hay, that vitamin K starts to leech out. It gets destroyed by UV light and within a few hours of being cut for hay it will be completely gone. So any horse that doesn’t have access to sufficient, growing, green pasture will quite likely be deficient.

“For people who feed hay all year round and don’t have that naturally grown pasture, we recommend using Bonafide constantly. For others whose pasture may have died away during winter or drought, we would suggest topping up their horses’ vitamin K levels with the supplement during these times.”

BUILDING A STRONG FOUNDATION

In the context of raising sound horses, limited access to fresh green foliage through drought, frost or availability may result in a vitamin K deficiency, which in turn can impact on bone strength. To support the growth of young bones, an adequate supply of vitamin K1 and K2 on a daily basis is vital for producing your next little champion.

“When we talk about feeding young horses, we’re always looking to ensure they are healthy now but also for the future too,” says Holly. “However, as a horse gets older, keeping their bones strong and healthy will always give them the longest and happiest life possible. It’s the same with humans. As we get older, our bone density will naturally start to decrease and get that brittleness. To prevent that from happening at a rapid rate, keeping up their vitamin K levels will help our older horses age better. A deficiency can happen at any age and will still have the same effect, but age can work against a horse too.

“A deficiency in vitamin K is really common in the racing industry or for any horse that is stabled,” says Holly. In the thoroughbred industry, yearlings are often X-rayed well before they enter the sale ring to check for bone-related disorders such as OCD lesions. Any faults can then be assessed and treated, often surgically.

PREVENTION OVER CURE

Like with any potential illness or injury, it is always better to have a prevention plan in place, rather than waiting for something to happen and then working through a cure. “We’ve been working hard to try and raise awareness in owners about the importance of vitamin K and how it functions,” explains Holly. “Especially how it functions in relation to bone development.

“We now put Bonafide into Hygain’s high performance and racing feeds such as Release and Tracktorque. That’s important to us because we feed a lot of racehorses and we know those horses are stabled and don’t have access to green pasture. To do right by them and to make sure we are preventing any bone-related injuries, we make sure they get vitamin K from our feeds.”

A study was conducted on presale thoroughbred yearlings where X-rays were taken to identify those that might require surgery. The yearlings were treated with 20g of Bonafide per day between the X-ray dates. The results showed marked improvement and in all cases eliminated the need for surgery.

SO WHAT IS BONAFIDE? 

Bonafide is a water soluble, bio-available form of vitamin K1 and K2. It is available as a powder and it is also added to Hygain and Mitavite’s range of premium race feeds to support bone integrity. EQ

You can find out more about Hygain Bonafide here.