The weight supplement is Farnum Weight Builder. I will add Tri-Amono and see what happens.
Sheilah
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He loves being out of the arena and is about as safe as a horse can be out and about, sharing the road with cars, bicycles and trucks.
Sheilah
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I have 2 horsesāand try to divide up my rides so that I ride at least one horse a dayāand typically ride both on Fri and Saturday. My goal is for both to be ridden at least 5 days a week. My mare is 17 and does best with consistent workāis schooling 4th, so with her I want to maintain her fitness and strength. My other is 8 and he is just in his 2nd year of real workāso he needs to build strength and fitness.
I also mix up dressage schooling with cavaletti, jumping and hacking. Although, currently we are headed into winter cold and darkness so we will be in the indoor until spring now. So, we will use cavaletti and jumping to keep things interesting.
Iāve also heard that if you have an older horse and. younger horseābetter to ride the older one more often, even if the rides are short (motion is lotion). I think itās harder to bring them back if you let them sit when they are in their teens vs. letting a 7 year old hang out for a year.
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I have a 21y.o. mare that I am currently riding every-other-day. I feel 5 days per week would be better with at least one of those being a trail ride. That said, every-other-day is the best I can do as I am caregiver for my 93 (almost 94) y.o mother. I just canāt leave her more than that. I usually do a 20-30 minute work session then ride the property which includes a hill for her cool down so probably 40 minutes total. Her work sessions are varied to prevent boredom (for both of us). We do a good marching walk warm up with some leg yield to get her moving off the leg then I formulate exercises for what I want to work on for the day. I donāt drill. If she does it well, I only do it once. I make sure they are done each direction. Nevertheless, I get her working and using her little tush.
She had about 6 weeks off late spring and early summer due to my vacation, post travel COVID and then Momās severe illness (not COVID related). She is starting to look a little rounder now. She is getting grass hay (in front of her most of 24hrs) and I started her on Nutrena Empower Topline balancer. I think she has been on it about a month and I do think it is helping as after her little āvacationā I thought she looked pretty saggy.
All that saidā¦there is no indoor where I board but since our weather is holding, we will keep busting it as long as it holds out. When it gets too wet or cold, I long rein her on the property roads as long as it isnāt icy so she gets a little connected work. Then we just have to wait until the weather breaks and start over.
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I have multiple horses, but for purposes of this question my āmainā horse does best when worked a minimum of 4 days when the footing allows (no arena). If I can make a 5th day happen, heās even better. 6 or 7 doesnāt really make a difference to him either way, but if I do that many days some of them will be light days where we just dink around. Iāve also found that he does best if I do 4+ days in a row, then give him 1 or 2 days off, max.
Once the rainy season hits that all goes out the window and Iām stuck just riding sporadically when the ground is firm enough. His little feet will punch holes in the turf where the larger horses with bigger feet donāt, so even just going for tack walks is iffy.
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A quart (4 cups) of Equine Senior should be about 2 1/2 pounds. But weigh it to be sure. Also ā the blue bag (Senior Active) has a lower feed rate than the red bag (Senior). So might depend on which you are feeding.
It is the red bag.
Sheilah
Ok, then you might be under feeding. Might be worth switching to something more caloric like blue bag?
Gotcha. I need to hit the feed store this week, so I will take a look at that.
I usually feed LMF senior, but it has been hard to find local to me. Probably find it if I go to Boise.
Sheilah
6-7 days/week with the majority doing things other than schooling. If I donāt ride that often I pay for it with a very angry, jealous horse. This is a horse who will inspect what tack (or absence thereof) is laid out in the grooming stall for her. None or just longeing items get a sniff of derision. When she first started judging me on what activity I had planned for her, I didnāt really trust what I was seeing. Many years later after much observation - yup, she totally judges my tack choices.
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I am often riding around weather, light, work schedule, etc. I only have an outdoor arena (although the footing is super). How often I ride depends on the horse, but generally I aim at three days in a row with a day off inbetween (so not really a weekly schedule). That said, I try and ride both weekend days, weather permitting. So sometimes I might do four days in a row. Generally, my program is that the first day after a day off involves stretching, basics, focusing on acceptance of the bit and relaxation. The second day, I might focus on work in canter or I might do preparation for a movement that Iām working on (for example, if I want to work on half passing on the third day, I might be doing shoulder in exercises and leg yield exercises and changes of bend exercises, and bending with changes of tempo, etc.). Or I might work on trot work the second day and canter work the third day. When I have my other young horse at home (heās at the colt starter right now), I will try and ride every day and overlap the horses. Iāll ride them both on the weekend. I might change my approach at that time.
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Some of you are making me feel a lot better about only being able to do real barn time or ride 4 or 5 days of the week. One or two of those will probably be a longe day. One is semi-retired and the other is young, so I know itās okay but I still feel guilty-- especially the young horse. The entire fall has just been groundhog day with that one.
Now that itās dark so early and work has gotten busy Iāve decided my youngster is going to my coachās place for the winter and my semi-retired mare will remain semi-retired. So I will be disappointed to have even less barn time but maybe I will not feel so crazy.
Better to feel manufactured, needless guilt than to be judged by your workaholic horse for not working them every day! Normal horses do fine with only a few days a week.
I consider myself lucky when I can do 4 days a week. āThe best laid plans of mice and menā and all that. Between work, a 45 minute each way drive, a familyā¦ something has to give and I just cannot get myself out more than that. If I had a helicopter or could teleport, Iād be there daily.
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I actually have data on this! A couple of months ago it occurred to me that in addition to texting a brief synopsis of my ride to my horseās owner, I should also keep track of them in a journal, especially since I take lessons at a different barn and occasionally ride other horses at my leaseās barn and get the occasional catch ride. Itās a good way for me to track my progress and that of my lease. Granted, Iād been riding my lease for almost a year by the time it occurred to me that I should keep track, but since Sept 7, I have ridden 46 days (occasional days included multiple rides, like if I had a lesson on a school horse, Iād often ride my lease after), and thatās 10 weeks, so I guess I ride a little more than 4.6 times a weekā¦ At least one ride is a trail ride and at least one ride is on a different horse.
Itās also not unusual for at least one ride to be a completely goofy ride with one of my barn friends (whoās horse is my guyās bff) and weāre just kind of messing around, seeing what the horses want to do, and often bareback, and just laughing at each other and the horses. Itās good for us and the horses.
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i get on a horse every day, sometimes two or three a day. But that is just getting on them a few minutes, bareback, as they learn to be domesticated, happily.
The horses iām training in dressage i only ride in the barn i haul-in to under the supervision of my coach. And that is once a week. Well, 1 very talented mare goes every single week, the other three rotate. If i were to ride one of those four, which i donāt, it would be a trailride only. As it is, they are on a lot of acreage with a lot of other horses and get enough exercise to keep them in shape, albeit a bit on the plump side.
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I think they would appreciate if I could spend more time with them. My older mare would be fully retired but sheās much happier with an easier job.
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I hate to say it, but I donāt have a routine, I just ride when I can. I am happy if I get four rides in. This time change, though, makes it difficult. I had one main riding horse, and without looking, I now have another horse , so have to schedule for two horses (and my husband has two). So now I have less time per horse with the shorter days. I work full time, but luckily I work from home and my schedule is 7:00 to 3:30, so I can have more daylight time. But by time I get changed, get out, drag the arena if needed, and tack up, I only have time for one ride. Plus I take two university classesā¦so Iām pretty busy! One more semester of classes and Iāll be done. Whew.
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It really depends. This week, I rode three days, but most weeks, itās only two. During holiday breaks from work, like the week off between Christmas and NY, I may ride all five days in lessons. My horse is in full training 5x/week, so my trainer rides him on the days I donāt come out. When I do ride, I almost always ride exclusively in lessons. If my trainer goes away to a show for a few days or on vacation, then I will try to ride those days, but I also donāt mind giving my horse the extra break if I happen to be too busy with work or other life happenings. And donāt get me wrong - Iām not some uber-wealthy adult ammy. I work full-time and contract part-time to afford it, though my trainer is also quite reasonably priced.
