Three winters of temperature logging changed our minds. What the data said, and which horses are still the exception.
We put loggers under the rugs of eleven horses for three consecutive winters and read them every Monday. On all but the clipped and the very old, the skin temperature under a medium-weight rug sat well above what a horse needs to hold condition — and the coat underneath stopped doing its own job.
Since then the yard rugs by exception, not by default. Clipped horses, veterans over twenty and two hard keepers get theirs. Everyone else grows a coat and uses it. Feed bills went up slightly in January. Vet visits for skin conditions went down for three years running.