27/11/2025
🐴🔬 New 2025 Research from Dr Ben Sykes: What We’re Learning About EGUS & Behaviour
2025 has produced some of the most important updates yet in our understanding of Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome (EGUS) and what it really means for behaviour and welfare.
Two papers in particular stand out:
1️⃣ “Can All Behavioural Problems Be Blamed on EGUS?” (Sykes & Lovett, 2025)
This paper is a crucial course-correction for the industry.
🔹 Highlights:
• Not all behavioural issues stem from gastric disease, and relying on ulcers as the default explanation leads to misdiagnosis and missed welfare concerns.
• Many horses with EGUS show no behavioural abnormalities at all.
• Many horses with behavioural issues have no meaningful gastric pathology.
• Behaviour is multifactorial, influenced by:
• Musculoskeletal pain
• Rider interaction
• Environment and stress
• Training pressure
• Gut discomfort (when present)
• The message:
Stop using EGUS as a catch-all diagnosis, always investigate the whole horse.
This aligns strongly with what we see in practice: gastric findings often become a scapegoat while underlying pain and stressors go unaddressed.
2️⃣ “A Behavioural Medicine Approach to Managing Chronic EGUS” (Klinck, Lovett, Sykes et al., 2025)
This paper shifts the focus from simply treating ulcers to understanding why they occur and why they recur.
🔹 Key points:
• Chronic EGUS cannot be solved by medication alone.
• Horses need environmental stability, predictable routines, and reduced psychosocial stress.
• Feeding rhythm, forage access, social contact, and training load all play major roles.
• Behavioural observation isn’t optional, it’s essential.
• True management requires a multimodal approach, including:
• Diet optimisation
• Pain assessment
• Stress reduction
• Consistent handling
• Thoughtful training strategies
• Targeted medical intervention
• The gut is part of a bigger system, not an isolated organ.
This paper reframes chronic gastric disease as a behavioural, biomechanical, and environmental problem, not just a gastric one.
🔥 What These 2025 Papers Mean for Horse Owners & Professionals
Together, these studies reinforce three essential truths:
1️⃣ Behaviour ≠ ulcers.
Horses act out for many reasons! pain, stress, confusion, environment. Gastric findings are just one small piece of the puzzle.
2️⃣ Ulcers are often secondary.
Musculoskeletal pain, chronic stress, poor routines and environmental pressures frequently come first, with the gut suffering later.
3️⃣ Sustainable management goes beyond omeprazole.
It requires whole-horse thinking: nutrition, turnout, emotional well-being, training patterns, hoof balance, saddle fit, and pain assessment.
Takeaway:
If a horse is behaving differently, don’t default to “it must be ulcers.”
Start with the whole horse. Examine pain, stress, environment, and biomechanics.
The gut is important, but it’s rarely the root cause on its own.
Join Myself and leading expert Dr Ben Sykes tomorrow 8am GMT live for a dive into the latest understanding on Gastric disease!!
Link here…
https://equineeducationhub.thinkific.com/courses/egus
Recoding will be available if you can’t make it live!
