Horse care guides

The AAEP core vaccines, how often boosters are actually due, and the USEF and FEI deadlines that catch exhibitors out — every interval cited to its published protocol.

What UK horses are actually vaccinated against, how often flu boosters are due, and why racing, affiliated sport and FEI use three different intervals — with BHA, British Eventing and FEI rules cited.

What Australian horses are actually vaccinated against: tetanus and strangles, Hendra where the flying foxes are, EHV for breeding stock, and why the flu vaccine other countries argue about is not approved here.

Why rotational deworming every eight weeks is obsolete, what fecal egg counts actually tell you, and the parasites they miss entirely — following the AAEP's parasite control guidelines.

Why interval worming is obsolete, what a worm egg count misses, when to treat for encysted small redworm, and how UK wormer supply actually works through vets and SQPs.

Why worming every six to eight weeks is out of date in Australia: what the 2025 Australian guidelines say about faecal egg counts and shedding bands, how far resistance has spread, and why foals are a separate problem.

There is no American horse passport. What your horse needs is a negative Coggins and a health certificate, on deadlines set by the state you are travelling to — not by any national body.

Australia has no horse passport. What it has: a registration for the land a horse is kept on, in every state and territory but Tasmania, movement records that differ at each border, and identity that lives in brands, microchips and stud books.

What UK law actually requires — passport, microchip, the Central Equine Database, the 30-day rule for imported horses — and why the food-chain declaration cannot be undone.

No US law says how much to feed a horse: state cruelty statutes ask for “necessary” or “proper” food, and condition score fills the gap. The numbers in pounds from extension services and the AAEP, the published starch and weight-loss limits, and the US hazards — blister beetles, fescue, ionophores.

England's statutory welfare code declines to put a number on forage, prints a 0 to 5 condition score, and asks for hard feed over at least two meals a day — with what a court does with it, and where the research goes further.

There is no national rule for feeding a horse in Australia. What each state and territory's welfare law actually says, the condition score several of them draw a line at, and the tropical pastures and native plants a British or American guide never mentions.

Not “log everything”, which is why most horse diaries die in three weeks. The five categories that earn their place, the six questions a vet asks at 6 a.m., and what to leave out.

Half leases and part-loans rarely fail through laziness. They fail because two people held different pictures of the same arrangement. The six things worth agreeing about, and the one everybody forgets.

Not how much you should ride — how you would know what you actually did. Why frequency is the first thing memory loses, and the four questions a training record has to answer.

Six to eight weeks is a range, not an answer. What published guidance says about trimming and shoeing intervals, what changes in a foot between visits, and how you would know the interval you really keep.

Enter the flu vaccination dates from the passport and the day you arrive at the show. The checker applies the FEI rule, or your national federation's, and says whether the horse can compete and when the next dose is due.

Measure the heart girth and body length with a tape and get your horse's weight in pounds and kilograms from the standard girth-and-length formula — plus the University of Minnesota four-measurement equation, and how far off each can be.