Yes — and the Treat Many Horses Actually Need
Horses can eat celery, and while it rarely wins a popularity contest against carrots, it fills a gap no other common treat fills as well. Some horses, on veterinary advice, have to live with sugar watched carefully in everything they eat — and their owners still want a treat to hand over, a reward to train with, a reason for the horse to come to the gate happily. Celery is that treat: crisp, fragrant and genuinely low in sugar.
Why Celery Suits Easy Keepers
Most of a celery stalk is water held in fibrous walls, with very little sugar riding along. Set it beside an apple or a carrot — both honest treats that carry a real sugar load — and celery is the one an owner of a cresty pony, a laminitis survivor or a metabolic horse can offer with a clear conscience, in the quantities a treat should be offered at. It also brings a strong, clean crunch, which many horses relish even when the flavour itself is mild.
Cut It Short: the Fibrous Strings
Celery's one real drawback is its strings. The long fibres running the length of the stalk can ball up awkwardly for a horse with worn, missing or sore teeth, and a long stalk dangled and snatched is the likeliest way to present a piece too big to manage. Cut stalks across into short pieces, a couple of inches at most, and the fibres become a non-issue. For a senior horse, this cutting is not fussiness — it is the difference between a treat he can enjoy and one he gives up on.
Introducing a New Crunch
Bring celery in the way you would bring in any new feed: a piece or two alongside the familiar bucket on the first day, not a whole bunch at once. Most horses crunch the first piece experimentally and then look for the second. A few find the flavour too green and leave it — accept that verdict, because celery's job in his life is to be a pleasure, not a prescription. Watch the droppings over the following day; normal droppings mean the new treat has settled in fine. Celery pieces also make a good training reward where a session runs long: because each piece carries almost no sugar, you can reward at the rate the lesson needs without the day's treat total quietly becoming a second feed.
Washing and Keeping It Crisp
Rinse celery well before cutting — the grooves of the stalk hold field soil and spray residue — and keep the bunch cool so it stays snappy rather than limp. Limp, yellowing celery past its best goes to the compost, not the horse. Inner leaves and the pale heart are fine to include in the pieces; nothing in a sound stalk needs trimming away beyond a rinse and the knife.
When a vet has put a horse on the low-sugar path, recording celery as his approved treat in his KinsLe Pet Passport means the instruction survives every change of yard, sharer and season.