My horse is an elderly chap, and at the end of the winter, he's not his best. He seemed to find this winter particularly hard and has lost a lot of condition. He's on a veteran mix, sugar beet, and chaff, and as much hay as he wants every day. He lives out, but has access to his stable at all times. He suffers from COPD in the summer, and has garlic in his feed which helps, along with a herbal supplement which is meant to help respiratory problems.

I'd love to hear from other people with veteran horses, and what they feed them, etc. I'm always looking for new ideas to try with him,

Glad to see you love veterans. I have a 26 year old x-Royal Artillery IDx called Waterloo (stable name Louie) who is featured in this month's Top 10 Profiles - I'm so proud. I'm really lucky as he is very robust and strong and very definitely a good doer so I never struggle with him keeping condition on over the winter. I feed him very little as he'd just get fat otherwise - he gets a half scoop of Hi Fi Lite chaff, a handful of pony nuts and Spillers Cool Mix with herbs plus some fruit and veg. I do believe in supplements though to help him out as he gets old and use NAF Superflex to keep his joints supple, NAF Pink Powder to help his tummy (he cribs), biotin for his hoofs and garlic to stop the flies and help his circulation. I also add about 25ml of vegetable oil to each feed which keeps his coat nice and shiny. He gets about 3 sections of hay each night and is turned out all which can sometimes be for a long time as I work fulltime in London and have to muck out before work. If your horse drops weight and condition have you thought about adding some Baileys No1 to his feed - my friend does this with her 25yr old and it seems to help. She also supplements his food with a half-bucket of ready grass in the night and morning which he loves. Her horse has benefited this summer as he doesn't appear to have lost as much weight as usual and is looking as we go into spring. Hope this helps xx