Putting horses’ health first: royal support for scheme battling equine obesity

Princess Royal is supportive of a scheme designed to combat equine obesity in showing – as more horses and ponies than ever before are to be involved.

Princess Anne is patron of The Horse Trust, whose Weigh to Win scheme, for which special awards are given to the horse or pony in the healthiest body condition in certain showing classes, has been running for six years.

She attended a training day run by the charity, at which she and others including vets, riders, judges and representatives of showing societies heard more about the adverse effects of obesity. Guests were given demonstrations of body condition scoring, weighbridge and weigh tape use and ultrasound scanning of fatty deposits.

“The Princess Royal spoke with many of the guests about their involvement with Weigh to Win and reflected on the challenge of keeping horses at a healthy weight, sharing some of her own experiences and anecdotes,” a Horse Trust spokesperson said. “Her Royal Highness, as patron of the charity, was enthusiastic about its positive impact and thanked the delegates for their support in driving the awards forward.”

The initiative came about after a conversation at the British Equine Veterinary Association (BEVA) Congress inspired Horse Trust CEO Jeanette Allen to rethink the way equine obesity is addressed.

“I thought, if society is recognising a higher body condition score is OK, how do we shift that?” she said. “It occurred to me that we should stop chastising people for the wrong thing and start rewarding them for doing the right thing.” The Horse Trust funded Tamzin Furtado’s PhD on managing equine obesity, which led to the 2019 pilot of the awards.

Behaviour change

Horse Trust head of research and policy Jan Rogers said the team recognised that excess equine weight had become normal, especially in showing, so worked with the University of Liverpool and BEVA and “introduced a hefty dose of behaviour change science to help us figure out how we could make this work”.

Ms Rogers told H&H: “We’re engaging with all sorts of governing bodies through the Showing Council, giving the rosettes in the ring. People scan the back of the rosette and tell us about their win.

“We offer training to all the showing bodies, we’ve inspired a couple of other countries to take it on board; Canada and New Zealand, and the scheme won BEVA’s equine welfare award last year. And it’s so simple to take part.”

The scheme is growing; 47 shows ran the awards last year and 354 rosettes were given out. So far in 2025, 54 shows were completed or confirmed before July, seven were yet to finalise and 288 rosettes had been given out.

“The message to horse owners is that when you do right by your horse, you will be recognised for that, and rewarded,” Ms Allen said. “And it’s to encourage them to keep going, keep trying, keep putting their horses’ health and welfare first. It’s been so exciting to see it gather momentum.

“[The Princess’s visit] was such a great success; judges, vets, show organisers, so many influential people from the showing world, and to hear them talk about how pleased they are that they’ve adopted the programme is really encouraging. It was lovely having Her Royal Highness come to learn more about the process.”

Hickstead showing director David Ingle added that to have Princess Anne’s support is “so significant for a project like the Weigh to Win”.

This year’s Weigh to Win equine weight forum takes place at Hickstead during Royal International (22-27 July), at which there will be “hot topics” up for discussion.

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