I am planning to breed my OLD mare late this Spring or early Summer. She is my AA Hunter. The plan is to continue to show this year. What is an acceptable workload for a pregnant mare? When her mother was pregnant with her, she had already stopped showing and had a slight suspensory injury a few months before she was bred, so she never went back to major work. She won’t have a heavy show schedule, probably 3-4 rated shows maximum and most likely not past late July, and mostly local showing. What is a reasonable amount of time into a pregnancy to expect to be able to jump? When do you usually stop riding your mares?
A few years ago now, I bred a maiden race mare, then raced her twice in the summer. With Lasix. No issues with this. It was a risk that I decided to accept, both the racing and the Lasix. Foal born the following spring as expected. I would hazard a guess that your major risk would be exposure to viruses, and potential illness that may prove a risk to the foal, rather than the work load. If your mare has had extensive exposure to a large number of forms of viruses in the past, better chance that she will be immune to any possible viral infection. If she is an OTTB, that is good for this, usually better than non racing horses. Also, any drugs that are used to keep her show ready may be an issue, if you use anything, think about it. If you are breeding in spring, and stopping showing in July, no problem with that with foal development with that sort of work load, IMO.
But every day is a risk for a pregnant mare, and a pregnancy is lost for a huge number of reasons, many that you can’t know, and can’t avoid. Risk is inherent in the plan. Good luck!
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I know of a few mares who continued their normal life while still pregnant.
- This was the first time I’ve heard of this, a pony mare was unknowingly pregnant (opps baby, not ours.), and continued to have a full show schedule and even competed, and won, a show the day before she gave birth. Mom and foal were perfectly fine, and foal grew up wonderfully.
- A girl I know bred her mare early in the year and still did a full show season, did championships, and then after champs she was “retired” to be spoiled and loved on for the rest of her term and foal out a lovely filly!
3)We bred a mare middle of last year during show season, finished off the year strong, attended champs and placed, and after champs she was been loving the pasture pet life. She ballooned and was pretty…round…looking for champs though :lol:
The first mare had a tiny work load as she was a small pony just taking a kid around the smalls, second mare was doing the 1.0m or 1.10m jumpers, and the third mare was doing the 2’9 Training Adults.
I asked a vet about it once, and she compared it to a human pregnancy- if the horse (person) is used to the exercise, then it’s not new stress and they’re (we’re) used to it. I think you should be fine, but I’m no vet, all pregnancies have risks involved.
My friend competed her western pleasure mare until three months before she was due. At that point she was on the bigger side and starting to act uncomfortable and generally miserable. Now WP isn’t as strenuous as jumping, but it didn’t seem to bother her any. Foal was born normal and healthy. That show season, and the foal, were kind of the last hurray before they retired the mare to pasture ornament status. Mare was 18 and starting to show signs of IR.
I have also heard that keeping a mare fit during pregnancy can help with birth. Now I am not sure if that is people just trying to justify continuing to work their mare, or if there is any truth to that. I know they encourage fitness in women for a similar reason.
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