feeding the horse during preparing it for race

Question
can we feed our horse with fresh alfalfa during preparing for racing.some of our experiment friends in Iran says that in the race feeding program we can not give fresh alfalfa but giving dry alfalfa is recommended.   with my best thanks

Answer
Hassan,
Thank you for the feeding question. I am not an experienced race horse conditioner but in feeding other high performance horses I have only fed 'fresh' alfalfa that had already been dried and baled. The fresher the hay, the higher the sugar content. Very fresh hay can cause a horse to become loose and lose water even if they are fed alfalfa regularly. I doubt it would have any real benefit over well dried and cured hay but in fact could cause problems. Hope this helps some. Good luck at the races !!!

Bill