----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, November 27, 2000 6:59
PM
Subject: RC:
Susan...Sarah...heeeeeelllllppppp!!!
Hi, all.
I'm at my wits end with my
blasted horse again, and I need advice desperately. The first three
years I had him, he was in livery, and basically was fed a helluva lot of
concentrates with a little bit of hay. He was a lunatic 90% of the time,
so I was kind of used to it. When I moved Toc home, I cut out most of
the grain, switched him to a 12% protein, maize-free, added some vegetable oil
to his grain, and upped his hay and added lucerne. He looks absolutely
gorgeous, is easy to keep weight on and not nearly as hot as he was.
However, he is still, at heart, an obnoxious sonofa....well, you guys know the
story.
Anyway, last year, the first year
he was home, I worked him lightly for the first six months, then decided to
give this eventing thing a bash. I began working him quite hard : he was
being lunged for 45 minutes in the morning and worked for between 1 and 2
hours every afternoon. Hard work, too : roadwork or intense schooling
coupled with a hack out afterwards. Naturally, I upped his concentrates
as his workload increased, because...well...that's the way it's done,
right? I increased his grain to a max of 2 kgs per day and he went
absolutely ape pooh on me. A real terror to ride. Unfortunately,
this is not a horse that you can tire, so "working him through" his brain
farts didn't work. The funny thing was that there was no outward reason
to up his grain : he didn't lose weight when his workload increased, and he
wasn't "flat" (Oh, I yearn for flatness.....)
I increased his grain because
every book / article I have read on nutrition said that a horse in that amount
of work should have at least 40% grain in his diet. He went ballistic
when I increased the grain to 20%, let alone 40%
This year, I've decided to do it
differently. As he's just come out of Horse Sickness, and not been
worked for a while, I have started lunging him for 20 minutes per day.
(Please bear in mind that this horse is an angel on the lunge : you can
free-lunge him on voice commands only and he behaves like a
schoolmaster...it's ridden work that gives him his kicks) and upped it this
week to 30 minutes per day. He doesn't break a sweat and at the end
isn't even blowing, so I could up it. I've been doing ground work with
him, but want to start riding him again because he is horribly, horribly
bored, and is making PG's, the dogs' and my goat's lives a living
hell. I rode him on Saturday for an hour and a half, including 20
minutes of uphill trotting, 20 minutes of flatwork, 20 minutes of jumping and
a warm-up and cooling off. He was positively explosive while I was
cooling him off, so I didn't even come close to tiring him
out.
At the moment, he is on 500 grams
of concentrates per day. He looks like a million
bucks.
Do I need to increase his grain
as his work increases? Will he get sufficient trace minerals / vitamins
from the Super Codlivine I add to his diet. I've cut the oil out of his
diet completely, as I'm worried it might make him hot. My concern is
this : as this horse gets fitter, he gets worse, and worse, and worse.
By the beginning of the eventing season last year, he looked like a
fire-breathing dragon : all rippling muscles and veins protruding, but it felt
like I was sitting on that bloody great fault running through California,
waiting to be thrown into the middle of next week!
So, how do I balance his
nutritional needs against my need to survive? Do I keep him slightly
less fit, and if so, am I being cruel by asking him to do the work I'm asking
for.
And before anyone asks : yes,
I've checked teeth, tack, back, feet, etc. He's fine. And no, it's
not that I have a hot seat. On the contrary, I'm usually asked to ride
hot horses as I'm quite laid-back. This is a problem that seems unique
to Toc.
TIA
Tracey