Quite frankly (sorry) I do think you need a bigger built horse/one that is a better weight carrier. Doesn’t have to be a total deadhead, but sensible. There’s noting wrong with relaxing and jogging into the sunset on a deadhead.
You might find yourself more comfortable and be able to work on yourself more with a new mount. It’s fine to say this isn’t for me.
Sometimes reassessing is good.
I did, old horse passed on early spring, my health really awful this summer, not looking forward to winter feeding, cleaning and ice breaking.
I just sold the younger super-duper wonderful ranch horse to a friend’s wife.
She rides most days helping her DH, but is light riding, nothing wild and has been in love with the horse for a while, her DH kept reminding me she would love to have him.
Well, she is in love, horse is happy, not bored with little to do here, so all is well that ends well.
My other horse is 14 now and still debating about him, have two places for him, he is fine here for now, but like you, why keep trying to do what is just so hard, for many reasons?
Some situations just don’t have a good solution for all, someone is going to come a bit short.
As they say, “there is a time to hold’em, a time to fold’em” and for me, now, I am folding them, and maybe forever, that comes sooner than we think some times.
I don’t know why that made me feel a little better…but yes, a skill knowing when to hold, and when to fold, don’t think I’m ready to walk away completely, and running is definitely a risk sport these days.
Just come back from reviewing spine X-rays with the doc, got to make the most of the time there is.
Honestly some horses never come 100 per cent sound once they start having issues. I forget what happened with Mellow upthread, was it something metabolic or Cushings?
You have two choices. You can adapt to what he is feeling, have quiet rides and faster rides depending on what he comes out feeling like. You can give him more days off and really try to get in tune with his management issues. It will be harder to pursue a discipline in a straight foreward manner but you will learn a lot.
Or you can pass him along on a free lease to someone who can do this, and get a new horse with more consistent go.
The catch 22 is that sometimes what makes a horse a sweet safe beginner friendly confidence booster is that they feel longterm NQR and don’t ever get the zoomies.
Oh looked back. PSSM. That’s not going to go away. I understand a horse with that needs movement every day and being stiff after a day off is typical. Does he live on a pasture?
Nope, with the set up at the barn, turning out became problematic, he couldn’t play nice, so got beaten up badly. There is also the issue of not having to much grass. He lives in a dry lot, so he can move around, but needs more consistent work maybe.
I understand the key maintenance strategy for PSSM is consistent work. Doesn’t need to be a ride, you could longe or handwalk on trails or get a kid to take him out.
PSSM used to be known as Monday morning sickness because it affected work horses that had had Sunday off. Now we know they were genetically predisposed and it doesn’t affect all horses. As a kid I used to worry about my horse tying up after we’d had a day or two off but never happened.
I would guess you might ride less often as the weather changes in fall.
IME horses on dry lots don’t really self exercise that much especially if they aren’t feeling great. A rambunctious herd gets them moving but that’s not for every horse and NQR horses can get picked on.
Not to be unkind but it could be that all 3 ( sore, lazy , rider weight) are related to his problems and the issues you are struggling with. He may just not be up for it anymore, but there are other horses who are built a bit differently who can be a good match for you.
I know he has PSSM and maybe would do better with a different environment?
I always say that riding is a partnership and if both horse and rider are not happy/ comfortable than something needs to change. I hope the boarding situation ends up good and you get direction on what is best for both of you.
It is never easy, it seems.
Those of my vintage learned “Monday morning sickness” as an old fashioned term for tying up or azoturia (because the urine was a dark color), or, in the advanced textbook, exertional rhabdomyolysis. The classic example was a horse who worked hard pulling a delivery wagon Monday-Saturday, stood in a straight stall on Sunday, and then had an episode of tying up when put back to work on Monday, hence the term “Monday morning sickness.” There are multiple causes for tying up and two basic types, sporadic and chronic. PSSM is one of the causes of chronic tying up, but not the only one.
Shorter version: Monday morning sickness describes a particular set of symptoms, one cause of which could be PSSM.
That’s one of the harder things about PSSM - successful management depends not only on the individual horse, but also on the situation. Not everyone can provide what the given horse needs.
I got lucky in that I was providing most of what my horse needed, and found out how close to “not enough” we were shortly after PSSM was pegged as most likely cause.
That said I think it’s not at all unreasonable to feel that way. You are still in the first year (I think) and finding out what Mellow needs at various times of year. We live far enough north that the seasonal changes do affect the management of PSSM.
I almost gave up on my younger horse. He had a lot of extremes that were frustrating and erratic. One of the major reasons I persisted was that he was unsafe to ride and I could not risk permitting anyone else to try. Honestly there were days I pretended I only had one horse (the other one!) because I could not deal with the drama that day. Once he was going again and on the good, good, good, wheels fell off again rollercoaster I was about ready to give up. My coach talked to me about how even top riders don’t mesh with every horse. I thought about all the issues I had worked through and found there was really only one big one left - saddle fit. I decided (this was in November) that I would address that issue and if I was still not getting off the rollercoaster by spring I would give up. I was willing to do this because when he was on I really enjoyed riding him and I liked who he was. Having the deadline and the one major issue to work on took away a lot of the frustration and feeling that nothing ever changed when he had bad days. Things were not rainbows and butterflies by spring but I was enjoying him far more often than not and was willing to keep working with him.
I’m not going to advise you to quit or to persist, but to think about all the problems you’ve already worked through and identify the one(s) that keep popping up. Then if you feel like you have made progress set a deadline to reassess and possibly give up. Possibly losing your barn is a big stressor on top of Mellow’s issues, but if you do have to move you may find exactly the situation he needs to succeed with you.
Good luck with whatever you choose!
We are now able to stay at the barn, it has been bought, and there will be a direct handover. The person who is coming in I know, and I know she will look after the horses well, so going to stay put and give it a try. Biggest stressor then is losing my current trainer, who will not be coming to the barn anymore. BUT will have to try incoming team, and see how it goes.
Now, this sums up living with the PSSM horse, after my last ride, and the temps dropping I wasn’t confident at all that my lesson yesterday would happen, but it did. Got on, rode for a while, then he started to feel sticky, so I got off and let trainer hop on, and she pushed him through, and he started moving well. I got back on and had a beautiful free forward horse again. This trainer is the one person in my “real life” who has expressed any concern about my weight, and Mellow, vet is OK, the certified dressage coach I cliniced with, told mutual acquaintances that we were a great match, other clinicians have been fine.
She watched him carefully for the rest of the ride, says he is showing zero signs of discomfort, eyes and ears are soft, tail is quiet, movement looked free, no bracing.when he is like that, you want to keep him for ever….but still working out if that is HIS best life.
The upside here, the new person coming in buys and sells horses, so if she gets to know him, she might have a solution for us.
Given that anecdote, something to pay attention to is if the horse really needs to be pushed through these episodes of stiffness. If a horse is feeing NQR my first response like most folks is to dial down or even end the ride. But for some horses with chronic issues they need to be pushed through stiffness and then they loosen up.
Some older arthritic horses are like this. And my big Paint who is healthy almost always needs a longer warmup, she can go from pissy shuffle walk to giant trot and hand gallop in 20 minutes or half an hour. She has always been like this.
So perhaps you need to learn to push him through a stiff few minutes.
Obviously this is disastrous advice when folks are dealing with a brewing suspensory or other accute injury that will get worse with work. But for some kinds of chronic issues, just as in stiff older riders 
we need to warm up and push through. Of course I get to warm up running up and down loft stairs before I ride
Analyze that feeling of sticky! Seriously!
What is the feeling you get? Is it a sluggish response to the aid? Is it ignoring the aid until you get a little stronger with your ask? Is it a partial response? A half assed I don’ wannaa? Is is a brace against your ask? Is it I’m trying but this is all I can do?
You may have to play with your aids and what you’re asking in order to find out each time he gets sticky. I can tell lazy from excess glycogen, stiff from I’m trying, etc. but I’ve been doing this with this horse for fifteen years. I still have to double check my impression of why he’s sticky/stiff with a few tests.
Before diagnosis I used to have to take my crop and whack my horse to get him forward, but my feeling was that he wasn’t trying to be lazy or evade but rather that he just had something making it harder for him. Once he got rolling I didn’t need the crop at all. It’s one of the main reasons I asked the vet to check him. This need to get after him to get rolling disappeared completely when I got his feed and supplements sorted out.
In contrast I would ask my QH for something and he’d respond nicely giving approximately 75% of what he was asked. This tricked the rider into thinking almost, I’ll just ask again and get the last bit. With a less experienced or confident rider he could toodle along giving them the 75% which was no effort on his part. I knew him and if he gave me 75% (and he’d always try, just to see if I was paying attention) I would insist on 100% immediately. He was so lazy that he’d just give me the 100% because if he gave 75% he was going to have to do it at 100% anyway and it was easier to just do it the first time.
Don’t get stuck in your head about “I can’t tell, I’m not that good a rider” or anything like that. Experiment each time and think about what you are feeling. For example if you insist on a sharp, forward response what happens? Or if it’s a one sided brace/resistance that is more likely to be stiffness that can be played looser than it is PSSM. If it’s an easy, flexible response to aids at the walk and then sticking as you get into trot and he can’t give a bigger, quicker forward response that is more likely to be excess glycogen that needs more walk and maybe jog time before going into the bigger trot.
If you’re going to give yourself a chance to work this through then give both of you the best chance by reading through this thread for the woohoo! moments and remind yourself how much you really do like this horse. I found that was important to do so I could give my horse a fresh approach on the bad days instead of piling all the old baggage on the drama llama every time. 
Thanks for all the sensible and helpful advice, I really really appreciate it.
I hear you on not adding baggage to the drama llama, my vet, who owns her own n/P1 simply puts it, ride the horse you have under you, and RIDE YOUR DAMN HORSE.
It’s so odd though, I often lunge him before I ride, check how he is going, but the two best rides I have had recently didn’t lunge, just got on and walked for 10 minutes or so, maybe that’s a key, or leaving off his fly sheet, dropping the alpha cubes, adding the magnesium…who knows
It takes 7-10 min of walking to warm up the temperature of the muscles so that they can really stretch. Look up info about correct human conditioning/weight lifting etc. I always start every ride with 10 min of loose rein walk before anything else. If you lunge and ask for trot or canter work immediately that might be counter productive. Try lunging but at a walk for ten min, time it because it feels like an eternity….then see how he seems
It really will!
I ride older lesson horses. They ALL need warming up for their backs to feel “right”. I also have MS, get too dizzy to lunge and I can’t keep my feet under me, and would end up too exhausted to ride.
I use a BOT/ThinLine Contender II saddle pad (so I can shim) or a Fenwick Western saddle pad that extends over the loin. At least 5 minutes for the horse to wear a BOT exercise sheet if it is hot and I have it on the full ride when it is cool. Otherwise these elderly horses start off STIFF and it takes me 15 minutes to warm up their backs. with the first 5 minutes in 2-point (or a half seat on my bad days). I ride as early in the morning as I can, 8:00 AM or 9:00 AM so it is still pretty cool.
If they do not wear this stuff they really never warm up (walk, slow trot). They take 3-4 times the amount of leg to get going, and I HAVE to keep after them with light well timed leg aids to keep them going, and they will NOT stretch out and extend.
The worst conformed horse I’ve ever ridden was MUCH more comfortable carrying me when he wore the BOT front and back exercise boots I gave him, in addition to all the other stuff. He’d nuzzle me (usually hated people) and stride forth more like a normal horse instead of his usual QH 2 mph shuffle. We’d put the BOT stuff on in the wash stall, he would sigh, lower his head, relax and sort of doze off. He LOVED his BOT stuff.
I don’t own the horses I ride. I have to accept them as they come to me. I started off with the BOT Contender II saddle pad, added the BOT poll cap, and then as I was assigned other horses I got the BOT gear they needed. Lately I added the Fenwick stuff. It is not cheap but it can help an older horse with some developing issues feel more comfortable carrying you at least for short rides.
A good 10 to 15 minutes of solid walking (not poking along) under-saddle at the beginning of the ride is probably a lot better for the horse than lunging. (Unless you’re very experienced at lunging a horse). Lunging is hard on the joints and you have less control (generally and with most horses) over how they’re using themselves.
Plus it’s easy for you to zone out while you’re lunging and get caught by surprise by something that happens on the lunge-line or when you first mount up.
If you’ve ridden the horse at a good, crisp walk for 10 minutes, you know what horse you have underneath you. Then put the horse into a trot, again at a crisp pace but not rushing. At that point, after you’ve ridden 20 minutes or so, he should have loosened up.
If you’ve been lunging because you’re worried he’s going to explode, then you might want to start the riding-rather-than-lunging regimen by having someone else walking beside you and the horse for the first 5 minutes or so. You probably won’t have to continue this strategy long-term, so if you have a friend with whom you normally ride, if s/he could help you out a couple of times, it might get you over the hump.
The use of a Back on Track (or similar) quarter sheet is a great idea, particularly as you’re moving into cooler weather.
Good luck!
It also occurs to me that there are very few horses that you can saddle up, take into the arena, and just start working.
When they are young and hot you need to figure out a protocol whereby you don’t get killed, which might be longeing or something else. When they are young and hot and injure themselves you have the difficult task of stall rest and slow work and explosions.
As they get older and slow down or develop chronic aches then you need to find the warmup system that works for you. Also the management system that works for that horse.
My Paint is as far as I know healthy. But she generally takes a good 20 minutes under saddle at walk and sucked back trot to get forward, unless there is a mitigating factor that gets her excited. She has always been like this but we used to have fights about it. Now I take her on the trails, I like to loop around so at the 20 minute mark we are pointed at home and use that to get some momentum. Once she is warmed up she can get quite hot and forward. Longeing simply does not replace a riding warmup.
It’s quite possible something has always bothered her. It’s also true that she can get used to doing very little and needs a push. There are days I give her attended turnout and she stands there like a lump. Then I chase her a bit with a longe whip and she explodes into a full on buck and gallop bronc fest after which she is out of breath but relaxed and happy and alert. Once she’s running she really enjoys it.
I think of her as dragging a big assed friend to a Saturday morning fitness class. All the way there she is moaning on about why don’t we just skip the class and have brunch. But once the salsa music gets turned on, she turns into a wild woman and after class wants to use the free pass to the weight room and the sauna and then run around the track. Then the next weekend she is complaining again at 9:30 am.
I need to try to turn on the music for my mare every single day, and some days of course she just doesn’t hear it at all.
BTW when I started riding her when she was 6 and I was only back in the saddle a few years I did longe her and do a lot more big run turnout after she unseated me once with the tiniest of little bucks :), but now I want that energy packaged under saddle.
We had a horse started the old cowboy way, let’er buck.
He was always saddled and then turned loose and hazed around a small pen to get the bucking off, then he was good to go.
His name, Hoppy. 
I used to lunge my red mare before every ride, when I say lunge, I held the end often line and watch her fly buck, squeal, fart, run, until the beautiful moment you could see her brain switch on, she would steady, and start listening, then we were good to go.
With Mellow I think maybe I’m not gaining much, I spend 10 minutes watching him walk and trot, worrying about how he is moving. That time would probably be best spent just jumping on and walking large, and feeling how he is going.
If he is feeling real bad he’ll let me know, either head in the clouds, or won’t let me approach his left side, or both.
Will look into getting some BOT stuff for him, I love my people BOT braces and clothes.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
