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| It's getting close to rodeo season and it's about time to start getting the horses back in shape to were they can really compete. What ways do you use to get your horses back into shape at a good rate? |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 685
Location: Arkansas | I just pasture ride for a few weeks then try to build up their endurance. I am actually working on getting a round pen put up so we can do some work in there... Im pretty excited! We've been off since mid-september so it will take a bit for him to get back into shape... and even longer for me! LOL |
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| i have been keeping one barrel horse in shape well i haven't quit riding him since rodeos ended but the others i haven't rode since late september. i use them for goats and breakaway |
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Married to a Louie Lover
Posts: 3303
 
| We start running the first weekend in April. So my goal is to start riding regularly in mid February in our indoor and step up to riding in the field in early march to start legging him back up... |
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| what do you do in this weather? i think its definitely not good to ride with all this snow.. first rodeo is the first of march so i think as soon as the weather gets clear I'm bringing all three up that i can ride and ride them around the field long trotting and then after about a week start practicing pole bending again and get back in the arena |
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 Expert
Posts: 1552
Location: PA | brlbarrels - 2014-01-06 10:56 AM what do you do in this weather? i think its definitely not good to ride with all this snow.. first rodeo is the first of march so i think as soon as the weather gets clear I'm bringing all three up that i can ride and ride them around the field long trotting and then after about a week start practicing pole bending again and get back in the arena
Oh I ride in the snow and outdoors all the time! I think the snow gives them a nice workout! If it is not bitter cold, I am out riding in the snow!!  |
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 Off the Wall Wacky
Posts: 2981
Location: Louisiana | We have had a few scattered barrel races and rodeos but my horse is still out of shape-to me anyway. I had a rodeo in early December and have rode maybe 5 times since then with the holdays and nasty rainy weather. We were supposed to have a barrel race yesterday and I am kinda glad she cancelled so I have 2 more weeks to get him in better shape. The rodeo association I'm gonna run this year STILL hasn't posted their schedule, but I think they started in March last year, so I have time to get him ready.
I do a lot of long trotting and loping just to get him in shape. With it cold out, I ride until he is about to sweat. I don't want him to catch a cold. It was 70 yesterday and in the 30s today, and will be back in the 70s by the end of the week, I just LOVE LA weather lol.
I enjoy reading everyone's tips on getting/keeping one in shape though. I always feel like I'm a little too easy on T-Bo, like he's never quite in the best possible shape. And we both need to be this year, because I plan on rodeoing more than I have in the past. |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 685
Location: Arkansas | dashnlotti - 2014-01-06 11:48 AM We have had a few scattered barrel races and rodeos but my horse is still out of shape-to me anyway. I had a rodeo in early December and have rode maybe 5 times since then with the holdays and nasty rainy weather. We were supposed to have a barrel race yesterday and I am kinda glad she cancelled so I have 2 more weeks to get him in better shape. The rodeo association I'm gonna run this year STILL hasn't posted their schedule, but I think they started in March last year, so I have time to get him ready.
I do a lot of long trotting and loping just to get him in shape. With it cold out, I ride until he is about to sweat. I don't want him to catch a cold. It was 70 yesterday and in the 30s today, and will be back in the 70s by the end of the week, I just LOVE LA weather lol.
I enjoy reading everyone's tips on getting/keeping one in shape though. I always feel like I'm a little too easy on T-Bo, like he's never quite in the best possible shape. And we both need to be this year, because I plan on rodeoing more than I have in the past.
The weather has been the same here, except a bit colder. I havn't ridden since september with school picking up and weather.... but I plan on getting back on sometime soon to start legging up!! Youre not the only one that feels like youre "too easy" on one. I can be a bit of a baby-er! |
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Off the Wall Wacky
Posts: 2981
Location: Louisiana | Brrlracengirl - 2014-01-06 12:01 PM dashnlotti - 2014-01-06 11:48 AM We have had a few scattered barrel races and rodeos but my horse is still out of shape-to me anyway. I had a rodeo in early December and have rode maybe 5 times since then with the holdays and nasty rainy weather. We were supposed to have a barrel race yesterday and I am kinda glad she cancelled so I have 2 more weeks to get him in better shape. The rodeo association I'm gonna run this year STILL hasn't posted their schedule, but I think they started in March last year, so I have time to get him ready.
I do a lot of long trotting and loping just to get him in shape. With it cold out, I ride until he is about to sweat. I don't want him to catch a cold. It was 70 yesterday and in the 30s today, and will be back in the 70s by the end of the week, I just LOVE LA weather lol.
I enjoy reading everyone's tips on getting/keeping one in shape though. I always feel like I'm a little too easy on T-Bo, like he's never quite in the best possible shape. And we both need to be this year, because I plan on rodeoing more than I have in the past. The weather has been the same here, except a bit colder. I havn't ridden since september with school picking up and weather.... but I plan on getting back on sometime soon to start legging up!! Youre not the only one that feels like youre "too easy" on one. I can be a bit of a baby-er!
I can't seem to get his gut off for anything LOL. My BF is like, "Well if you rode him more..." I saw a gal's horse at a rodeo the other day and that thing was a lean mean running machine. That's my goal for T-Bo AND myself this year!! |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 602
| I have my first race of the season in Feb. Started working my horse in the round pen. I plan to do that for 1 week then start slow work. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1631
Location: Somewhere around here | I'm getting ready for our first barrel race this weekend and I started riding again two weeks before Christmas. At first I just did trail rides for the first 5-6 rides then I introduced arena work into the mix. Arena for 2-3 days then trail ride for a day. I'd make sure that my horse had at least two days off but once he started getting a little more fit I would maybe just do one day if the weather was particularly nice.
Now I don't have an indoor arena and we do get snow but if it was cold I would just tough it out and do only walk-trot work or go on a bareback ride to keep warm lol. |
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 Am I really the Weirdo?
Posts: 11181
Location: Kansas | I ride in the snow when its not frigid cold outside. It's actually a really good workout for the horses if its not balling up in their feet. The most fun ride I had last year was when I took Clifford 3/4 of a mile down the road (its gravel and we had 8 inches of snow on top of it) to check a snowdrift and see if it had been plowed open yet. After trotting a half mile, I let him lope and when we hit the 2-foot snowdrift, he had to flat work to get through it. yet his ears were pricked forward and he would have kept going if I hadn't pulled him up after the snowdrift. It was a great workout and a fun change of scenery for us. We don't have a lot of hills around here so riding in the snow is a good way to make them work a little harder than normal.
This year I'm trying not to let any of them get completely out of shape because I want them at the top of their games for Bonus Race Finals in April. Chance ran 5 days straight from Dec. 27-31 and I plan to ride him a couple times this week and next in case any good barrel races pop up. Even Joker, who is not running until at least March, is going to be ridden regularly so he doesn't get completely out of shape. His breathing when he's eating a round bale isn't good enough to do a lot but I can at least take him for a trail ride a week so he doesn't get depressed or fat this year.
My exercise program is just riding through the hay fields and slowly increasing the length and intensity of workouts. I'm not very scientific but at this point I know my horses and can tell when they're getting in shape. I need to work more on getting ME in shape but first I've got to kick the head cold that's ruined the last week of my life. |
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Veteran
Posts: 139
Location: Abbotsford B.C. Canada | Just a thought from a guy up north. I am looking at performance horse feeding and ran across an interesting idea you may want to consider. I suggest you Try and get a better hay or cubes and even use some alfalfa and ramp up hay quality. If the hay is more digestible than what you have now , it stands to reason the horse should get more energy and protein. The real trick is you lower the amount of undigested fiber going through the horse. If manure is 20% + moisture and you reduce the amount of manure without bunging up the horse of course, you lower the need to drink the water and carry the extra weight of the water (and feed fiber that is not digested) to move that indigestible fiber along. This lowers the volume and the weight of the gut contents. Hence you can trim him up a bit.He may then be able to run faster in thoery anyways.
I use a very good grass hay and alfalfa timothy hay cubes on my TB mare and she looks like a race horse even through we are just trail riding. A TB trainer in my barn says she looks like the fittest horse in the barn. The trick may be, she just is not full of poorly digested feed and the water she would need to keep it moving along.
I think you may benefit from 4-8 lbs a day of alfalfa cubes anyways just as a natural buffer proven to be great for ulcers. Last year I fed 10 lbs a day of pure alfalfa hay cubes and free choice grass hay and a supplement and some oil and flax and she looked like an endurance horse and you could not tire that horse out on the trail for 5 hours straight.
I think if you look at the research on lasix, the better performance is simply due to dumping 40 lbs of water and the horse carries less weight. Yes it may help the bleeding as well, but the research shows the math just works better for the horse with less weight to carry.
It seems dehydration is not enough to create any problems.
Coarse crunchy hay or poor mature pasture therefore is forcing your horse to load up on poorly digested fiber, and drink 2.5-3.5 time the weight of the extra indigestible fiber as water and produce more manure. I bet my horse could beat yours if you had a friend who could ride her as well as you can ride yours in a matched race. Provided they trained the same and so on. Just kidding, she is twenty years old but you get the picture.
It may also be time to up the grain as well and densify the ration that way as well. This too lowers the gut fill and extra water load as grain requires a lot less water than forage. Forage is still critical but just up the quality.
Never feed less tha 1.5% body wieght as forage though.
So look at the hay. See what you think it may be doing. Am I right? I am seeing this in my own horse. Let the debate begin.
Cheers,
PS I feel barrel racing horses need more attention from the "experts" who seem to focus on TB race horses.
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 685
Location: Arkansas | dashnlotti - 2014-01-06 12:43 PM Brrlracengirl - 2014-01-06 12:01 PM dashnlotti - 2014-01-06 11:48 AM We have had a few scattered barrel races and rodeos but my horse is still out of shape-to me anyway. I had a rodeo in early December and have rode maybe 5 times since then with the holdays and nasty rainy weather. We were supposed to have a barrel race yesterday and I am kinda glad she cancelled so I have 2 more weeks to get him in better shape. The rodeo association I'm gonna run this year STILL hasn't posted their schedule, but I think they started in March last year, so I have time to get him ready.
I do a lot of long trotting and loping just to get him in shape. With it cold out, I ride until he is about to sweat. I don't want him to catch a cold. It was 70 yesterday and in the 30s today, and will be back in the 70s by the end of the week, I just LOVE LA weather lol.
I enjoy reading everyone's tips on getting/keeping one in shape though. I always feel like I'm a little too easy on T-Bo, like he's never quite in the best possible shape. And we both need to be this year, because I plan on rodeoing more than I have in the past. The weather has been the same here, except a bit colder. I havn't ridden since september with school picking up and weather.... but I plan on getting back on sometime soon to start legging up!! Youre not the only one that feels like youre "too easy" on one. I can be a bit of a baby-er!
Haha Right! I just like mine to have plenty of weight on them; I don't like to see ribs.... |
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| all great tips. i think i will saddle up the two barrel and pole horses today and go for a short ride in the snow. thank you  |
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