Although it is natural to keep a horse or pony at grass this is not always practical depending on the horse and its use. A horse or pony may need to be kept stabled due to its inability to maintain condition sufficiently with being kept out all year, due to illness, for convenience or a variety of other reasons.

A stabled horse has the advantage of being readily available for riding and needing minimal grooming but can become bored resulting in it developing annoying habits (stable vices). Therefore it is important to maintain as far as possible a natural environment for the horse. This means that a stabled horse should ideally be stabled near others as they are herd animals and are comforted by the sight and sound of other horses nearby. Their natural feeding habit is to graze throughout the day and therefore the provision of regular forage, eg hay, throughout much of the day will compensate for this.