An athlete's appetite is not a flaw
A Hanoverian in work should not be suspected of gaining easily. Bred for generations as a riding and sport horse, the Hanoverian in regular training — schooling several times a week, competing, travelling — burns through feed at an athlete's rate, and most need their ration defended rather than restricted. The appetite that comes with that life is appropriate equipment: muscle has to be built and maintained, and a lean, tucked-up Hanoverian is usually an under-fuelled one, not a virtuous one. If your horse is in that phase of life, the answer to the weight question is essentially no, and the management task is feeding enough of the right forage-based diet to let the work show.
Box rest: the week the ration should retire too
The Hanoverian's weight story is really a story about transitions, and box rest is the sharpest one. Work stops in a day; feeding habits stop weeks later, if anyone remembers to change them. The horse stands in, often on generous hay given to keep it occupied, still receiving the concentrates that fuelled training, and condition climbs precisely when extra kilos will load an injured leg and complicate rehabilitation. Treat the ration as part of the rest plan from the first week: forage stays the foundation for gut fill and occupation, the energy-dense extras are cut back hard, and any change to exercise follows the rehabilitation programme your vet has set. A slightly leaner outline during convalescence is not neglect. It is the correct shape for a horse whose only job is healing.
Retirement and the step down to hacking
The slower transition catches just as many Hanoverians. A horse that steps down from competition to hacking, then to a few gentle rides a month, crosses several calorie thresholds on the way, and the bucket rarely follows it down. Owners keep feeding the horse they remember — the campaigner — long after the campaigner has become a pensioner, and the warmblood frame, broad and deep, accumulates the difference quietly around the crest and ribs. Extra weight on an older horse is doubly unkind, taxing joints that already carry years of sport and raising the general risk of metabolic problems and laminitis that rich retirement grazing can provoke. Re-score condition at every step down, and let each new, quieter job set its own smaller ration.
Feed returns last, as work returns
When a Hanoverian comes back into work after rest, the order of operations matters: fitness first, feed behind it. The temptation is to restore the full ration the moment schooling resumes, but a horse rebuilding condition needs workload to spend what it eats, and feeding ahead of fitness simply rebuilds fat faster than muscle. Increase work gradually, raise the ration in step with what the horse is actually doing, and keep checking the topline — returning muscle feels firm and fills the back evenly, while returning fat softens the crest and covers the ribs. A Hanoverian that gains on a genuinely light ration, or whose shape changes suddenly in either direction, should be discussed with your vet rather than managed by guesswork. The handovers are where this breed gains, so write each transition down in KinsLe: Care Teams let a Hanoverian's whole team see the layoff ration, the step-down date and the current scores, keeping yesterday's feeding from following today's quieter horse.