[RC] Possible overconditioned horse (long) - Kim Richman
I have some questions and concerns regarding
overconditioning. First of all I am due to go to Tevis and my gut is telling me
after todays ride I have a possible overconditioned horse. My first thing of
concern is that he is looking on the ribby side (he looks fit and read to go but
I can see his ribs when he walks). I was going to do a 20 mile slow ride today,
but going out he seemed on the flat and unmotivated side and our 20 mile ride
turned into about a 9 mile ride (some trotting, but mostly walking took me about
2 hours to do). My next thing of concern is while out on the trail while walking
up some of the hills his heartrate went up to between 160-175 (generally his
heartrate will reach those rates while trotting. Finally at about 3 1/2 miles
out there's a water trough that I stopped to let him drink (which he didn't, but
that didn't surprise me); I also wanted to see how long it would take him to
recover back down to 60. It took him about 6 minutes to recover, going only 3
1/2 miles and not very fast at that I would have expected him to recover in half
the time. Any input anyone can give me or what I should be doing between now and
Tevis would be greatly appreciated.
I plan on doing 3 maybe 4 more training rides
before Tevis and plan on doing mostly walking, w/ some trotting. I don't expect
the rides to be over 12 miles in length.
In regards to feed he's getting he's basically
getting grass hay am/pm w/ an extra flake in the evenings. Since I am out there
every day he's getting an extra flake hay (maybe between 2-4pm). He's also
getting 1 1/2lbs of H.E.S (this is a Dynamite product that is an excellent
source of fat and it is recommended you don't give more than 1 1/2lbs/day) so he
is getting a max of that. The days he's not being ridden on top of his normal
hay ration he gets about 5-7 extra pounds of soaked pellets; the days I ride him
he gets maybe and extra 10lbs of the soaked pellets if he will eat them. He
doesn't get any extra grain because the grain I was giving him before was
causing him to have runny poops (when I eliminate the grain the runny poops went
away in about 2 weeks). I am thinking however about giving him some extra
cracked corn or barley. What are other peoples thoughts on the extra corn and or
barley, and how much should I give him. At this point and time I would like to
get a little bit of extra weight back on him between now and Tevis. Just to let
anyone know who reads this I won't feed beet pulp, corn oil, or rice bran, so
those are not an option for added things in his diet.
Any opinions or advice I can get would be greatly
appreciated it.
