Dental work does not improve horse performance, says research

A recent study in Canada has informed that floating the teeth of dressage horses seems to have no effect on the equine performance.

Dr James Carmalt and associates have evaluated dental floating and its repercussion on equine performance, by studying 11 horses who had not had their teeth floated for a year against 5 horses that had received dental care 2 times a year.

Horses performed one of two standard dressage tests approved by the Canadian national equine federation, all leaded by only one experienced rider.

Once every horse completed the first test, each animal was sedated to have their teeth revised by Dr Carmalt.

Most common abnormalities were sharp points on outer edges of upper cheek teeth and inner edges of lower cheek teeth. Many anumals also had small hooks on the first upper cheek teeth and ramps on the last lower cheek teeth.

After the revision was concluded, all of the 11 horses had their teeth floated using a power grinder. The other 5 horses that had received regular dental care were then sedated and checked, but did not have their teeth floated.

The horses took the second of the two dressage tests, two days later. After the tests were completed, the judges and the rider couldn't tell which horses had had their teeth floated and which had not.

The advanced dressage horses performed meaningfully better than those with less training, as one might expect. But there was no significant difference between the advanced horses and those with some experience.
The posterior analysis of the dressage scoring has shown that teeth floating had no effect on performance.

Then the rider scored the horses according to her impression of their performance. It was interesting to find that, althought she didn't know which horses had been treated, she identified possitively 5 treated and 2 untreated animals. However, she couldn't define the condition of about the remaining horses regarding they were treated or not.

This was just a small study which involved 16 horses with different abilities. Dr Carmalt advises that further studies are needed in horses at different levels and types of competition in order to investigate the value of floating teeth on performance animals.

An extensive diversity of teeth abnormalities have been described to occur in the horse. It is a common thought that those abnormalities may interfere with food chewing and grinding, which may lead horses to swallow the bite without being properly chewed. Therefore, another common thought is that this attitude may limit the nutrients that could be released from the food, leading to weight loss and digestive problems (i.e. colic, choke, etc).

Dental problems are often blamed for poor horse performance. Animals who suffer pain on their mouths may concentrate on the pain rather than the bit cues. The dental abnormalities (i.e. sharp points) may wound the cheeks or tongue, and may therefore lead to bit evasion.

Trials performed on pregnant mares, Dr Carmalt has proved that floating increased the rostro-caudal movement of the jaw, but no effect on improving weight gain, food digestibility or fecal particle size.