The Happy Horse Nutrition Podcast with Dr Nerida McGilchrist makes horse nutrition make sense. A PhD equine nutritionist with more than 25 years of experience feeding horses, Nerida shares practical feeding advice, explains the science in plain English, and interviews leading experts in horse health, welfare and nutrition. From gut health and supplements to performance feeding and common mistakes, each episode helps horse owners, breeders and trainers feed with more confidence.
73. Horse Nutrition, Old Habits & the Science of Change with Dr Katherine Goldberg - Part 1
Why is it that we can be told something is better for our horse... and still find it incredibly hard to change what we do?
In Part 1 of this two-part conversation, Dr Nerida is joined again by Dr Katherine Goldberg, veterinarian and social worker, to turn the microscope away from the horse for a moment and onto the humans making the decisions.
Because improving horse welfare and horse nutrition isn’t always as simple as giving people better information. Human behaviour is messy. We have habits, beliefs, identities, fears, practical limitations and social pressures, and sometimes the benefits of staying exactly where we are feel bigger than the benefits of changing, even when the science is telling us otherwise.
Dr Katherine walks us through the psychology of behaviour change, including readiness for change, decisional balance and why some people simply aren’t ready to hear a new message yet.
And then there’s information overload: the vet says one thing, the trainer says another, Facebook says something else again, and suddenly doing nothing feels easier than working out who to believe.
If you’ve ever wondered why you or the horse people around you resist change, why better information isn’t always enough, or why knowing better doesn’t automatically mean doing better, this episode is for you.
Part 2 continues next week.
Connect with Dr Katherine Goldberg
Dr Katherine works with horse owners through Horses First Stewardship, helping people navigate horse care, feeding, track systems and those tricky situations where you know something needs to change, but you’re not quite sure what to do next. Pasted text
Website: https://www.horsesfirststewardship.com (https://www.horsesfirststewardship.com/)
Email: horsesfirststewardship@gmail.com (mailto:horsesfirststewardship@gmail.com)
29 Sept 2026
72. When a Horse’s Gut Health Goes Wrong: Bentley’s Story
Bentley had been a healthy horse for years, until an injury, prolonged antibiotic treatment and a cascade of gut problems changed everything. Persistent colic, abdominal pain, diarrhoea, gastric ulcers and gas eventually led us to look more closely at his hindgut microbiome.
In this episode, Dr Nerida shares Bentley’s roller-coaster ride case study, from microbiome testing and low microbial diversity, through increasing dietary fibre diversity and two faecal microbiota transplants (FMT), to the gradual return of a comfortable, happy horse. We also look at free faecal water, faecal pH, vitamin B2, fibre-fermenting bacteria and what Bentley’s before-and-after microbiome results might tell us about equine dysbiosis, gut health and colic risk.
It’s a brilliant example of just how complex the horse hindgut is, and how much we still have to learn about rebuilding a disrupted microbiome. Have a listen and be sure to hang on for the highs and the lows of Bentley’s story ❤️
Big thanks to Bentley's beautiful owner Saskia for allowing us to their incredible story! 🙏🏼🥰
22 Sept 2026
72. Rethinking Performance Horse Nutrition: Forage, Grain and the Dual Fuel Tanks
When it comes to fuelling performance, muscle glycogen and grain feeding get most of the attention, but that’s only half of the story.
In this episode, Dr Nerida breaks down the dual fuel tank theory of performance horse nutrition: the finite store of muscle glycogen used for speed and high-intensity work, and the continuous supply of energy in the form of volatile fatty acids (VFAs) produced via fibre fermentation in the hindgut.
We explore how these two fuel systems work together, how forage is an essential performance fuel, how the VFA acetate contributes directly to working muscle energy, and why overfeeding grain can undermine the hindgut fuel system that helps horses conserve glycogen for when they really need it.
If you feed a racehorse, eventer, polo horse, endurance horse or other high-level athlete, this episode offers a different way to think about the way you structure your diets around forage and grain, to maximise muscle glycogen, gut health and performance.
This episode is proudly brought to you by EquiGI's microbiom e
analysis, order a test kit at https://www.equigi.com
📲 Download the MyHappy.Horse nutrition app to check your horse’s energy intake and build better, more balanced performance horse diets https://apps.apple.com/au/app/myhappy-horse/id6633422324 (https://apps.apple.com/au/app/myhappy-horse/id6633422324)
💛 Follow the podcast for more practical, science-based horse nutrition. And we’d love you to share this episode with a fellow performance horse owner or trainer to help them feed for better performance.
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
5 ratings
Spotify
4.9 / 5
16 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 31 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
Quality
49
Social presence
0
YouTube
0
Engagement
32
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Questions about Happy Horse Nutrition
Who hosts Happy Horse Nutrition?
Dr Nerida Richards host the show. Published by MyHappy.Horse.
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