Ive never met Harry. There are a million funny videos of him falling off while playing, though. Most polo people aren’t fancy. We just like thrills and danger and going really fast. I definitely don’t hob-nob with the royals. Haha.
By your definition of training, yes they do get time off. Of course there are a select few who do not turn horses out each year, but it is REALLY frowned upon and would cast a terrible light on any player.
My point was that a sound, healthy horse does not need time off. A horse that had a hard campaign, maybe. But giving them time off for no reason doesn’t make sense.
I think what many are trying to convey is that time off can allow a horse to recover from micro injuries so that they don’t lead to a major one.
Well, I see no downside to giving a horse time off. I’ve been putting my mare on pasture for about 6 weeks in the fall for a number of years in a row. Good big pasture, herd that likes to run. She doesn’t come home unfit. And I like her feet after running around in clay based pasture.
At home she lives in a stall with a small runout, and is ridden almost every day. She also gets buck n run attended turnout, and hour long grass walks. But there is no all day big turnout and no pasture.
She definitely gets more movement on pasture than home in the barn.
I’ve also seen NQR or doing poorly horses come back from pasture looking fantastic, and clearly happy with the world, so it just seems like a good thing to have in my yearly schedule.
We did at least two breaks, mid summer and mid winter. Not for any physical reasons but the weather was really not conducive for continued work… and at least our guys, they never forgot anything. Their performance improved just having the mental breaks, to lounge about in the paddock or under a fan and just not do a darn thing
So did you abandon all training at that point and just go to competitions?
Is there research to show it is detrimental?
You will have to do a search on that one. It’s been my personal experience that the older a horse gets, the harder it is to get them fit and supple after a break. I don’t really give them a break, but I do stop riding in the winter due to weather. Usually no more than 6 weeks, but there have been winters when it goes on past 10 weeks.
Well, if the evidence (as noted by a poster above) shows that a horse on a good big pasture stays as fit galloping around as a horse stabled in light work, most horses aren’t going to be losing fitness. My horse probably comes home fitter from her vacation with a bunch of OTTB that run circuits around the pasture several times a day for fun. This kind of turnout is different from just letting a horse mope around a small dry lot for a month.
Also, if a horse is in truly peak condition for racing or endurance or high level competition of some kind, they might lose a bit of fitness. But on the other hand, I don’t think you can keep a horse at that level of fitness and that level of work 12 months a year. Even racehorses have a season off.
What is the difference between “giving the horse a break” and “not riding for 6-10 weeks”? 
Giving the horse a break means not riding for a period of time even if weather permits. When you can’t ride due to weather, it’s not a choice, it’s forced. If I could ride year round, I would. My horses certainly don’t need a break.
My horse pretty much gets 3 months off over winter. I’ll lunge him a handle of times but that’s it. I do it because I hate the cold! He comes back like it never happened.
After a very length cycle of Horse looks good - oh no something is off - is it this? - oh this fix seems good! - horse looks good - oh no something is off (lather, rinse, repeat), one of my mares is just rounding off her 5th month off. Last time ridden was beginning of November, groundwork through that month, and that end of Nov she hopped in a trailer to hang out eating hay with buddies in a field.
She’s been vetted 6 ways to Sunday, and while there are certainly challenges that require (and seem to respond well to) maintenance, there is nothing we can point to and say “X is wrong and Y will fix it!” I suspect that no small part of it is the mental fry of the situation.
So, when the ground is reasonable outside I will pop a saddle on her and see if she wants to come back to work, and if she is amenable - what kind of work does she want? Trail horse? Back to dressage? The world is her oyster, really.
I think downtime is a great option for these sort of grey-area, horse is not quite right, not quite happy etc. It’s not going to hurt them, and it might really help.
Very rare these days, unfortunately! Now we go down south to train…
I also think that the management has shifted from more turnout time to less turnout time in major competition barns. Less turnout time being typically detrimental to the structural soundness of the horse. I have had a very hard time finding a competition barn that turns out as much as I would like. Most prefer 7-5 turnout and that is just not enough for me, personally.
I have given my TBs the winter off (Nov-Feb typically, with occasional hack around property on nice winter days) for the last ten or so years. No problems. If I had it my way, I’d only give them a month or two (Dec-Jan) but it’s cold where I live and I don’t have an indoor to ride in - so the days I can tough it out, which are most days, the ground is usually too slick to do anything but walk!. They live outside 24/7 year round, and always come bouncing back to their previous level of fitness quite quickly. They never “lose” training or progress, although I do lament that by the time I feel they’re fit enough limb/cardio to do some real work (Prelim+) it’s winter again… but I have been known to be very conservative with conditioning schedules! :lol:
They are TBs, so they stay fairly fit with time off - but I also don’t feel I have to worry as much about limb conditioning in general when they are out 24/7, because I see them playing some crazy galloping games every day in the winter anyway. They stay very fit just romping in fields - or, more fit than a horse that is stalled would be.
Sometimes towards the end of the season especially after a big step or move up, I think having time to decompress from the stress of training & shipping is very good for them mentally – and it might also help any “small” undetectable things (like maybe getting backsore from the hard work) heal. No matter how we look at it, the more rigorous sports (racing, eventing, dressage) are hard on an athlete’s body… I think that giving time off is always beneficial as long as the horse is kept moving; if they are given time off in a stalled-type management, you may not see the same results.
I think time off in a stalled environment is counter productive. I do think turnout to a large pasture with a herd where they can run a lot, live entirely on grass, and decompress is beneficial. I also have started doing more of a 4 or 5 days on, one day off, with my horse. This helps keep her fresher and I think lets any saddle pressure or other discomfort dissipate. I also give her attended turnout and encourage a big run n buck workout. To date I have never ridden her full out blasting gallop 
so its great she gets to practice it once or twice a week. People worry about horses getting injured in turnout but if its part of their routine they adapt.
If you don’t give your horses a break but you don’t ride for 6 to 10 weeks do you have someone else work them?
Sorry I hadn’t seen the previous answers to this. So since your horses get a break why are you so negative about horses getting a break?
I used to ride year round but now I hate the cold weather so my horses get a break. I no longer show so there is no urgency to keep them going. They are turned out in a large field daily unless there is a blizzard.
I’m not negative about giving them a break, I simply said that a sound, healthy horse does not need a break. When I was younger and competing more, I never gave them a break, I’d just trailer to an indoor a couple times a week. Now, I don’t give them a break, I just can’t always ride consistently due to weather. I rode through January, then went on vacation and worked a lot in February and the beginning of March, plus it was cold, so therefore I did not ride in February or the first couple weeks of March. But I didn’t purposefully give them a break, and they certainly did not need one.
These were horses who were five and older
yes they were given the time off, no competitions just hang in the pastures/paddocks
Repeated training was not needed as they were trained, they never forgot a thing, even when being used in multiple disciplines
We started providing them breaks after watching the one who was shown extensively just go through the motions, she was tired of the whole thing. Bored to death, no spark, the light in her eyes was not turned on. She could do a Class A in her sleep.
Clanter back in the day when I showed I found they were always more enthusiastic after some time off. I personally believe that they benefit from a break. So do horses need a break, who knows, maybe we ride better after we have had a break. To each his own.
I recently gave my boy (coming 6yo) just over two months “off” because of a granuloma on his back that was being treated and the saddle panel was aggravating it. We did everything we could without putting a saddle on him - work in hand, lots of turnouts and long bareback walks around the farm. Then we had a couple of months of very inconsistent work due to weather. Now that the weather has started cooperating, and he is in consistent work (dressage - 4-5 rides/week) he has found a new gear and is pushing from the hind more consistently and his canter is more balanced, fluid and forward. Its hard to say how much to attribute to physically and mentally maturing and how much is the time off, but I think the break, and especially the walking the hills really helped.
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