Can frosty grass cause excitability?

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HaffiesRock

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When I arrived at the yard today there was a frost on the grass.

I tacked up my fatty haffy and set out for a hack. Well he was full of beans! Still safe and sane, but very forward and with a lot more energy than he usually has.

There are 2 big hills we trot up. We trot up the first, walk the next half a mile of flat, then trot up the second, steeper hill. Well we set off up the first and he was so forward I let him carry on, finally having to stop him at the top of the second. I thought htis would take the edge off him but it didnt! He was still full of himself when we got back and we knocked a good 20 minutes off our average time!

Only thing different from usual was the ground frost.

Any thoughts?
 
If the pony was out grazing on frosty grass in full sunlight could be the sugar content in the grass was a lot higher than normal.
Other than that....maybe he was just cold and moving faster to warm up :D
 
Probably the raised sugars in the grass then. When the grass freezes during frost and the sun shines on it, until it totally thaws the grass builds sugars as it cannot process them.
 
My old boy was laminitic, and one thing the vet and farrier both said to avoid doing was to turn out on a sunny morning when there was frost in the grass; due to the fact that when you have a combination of these factors (sorry don't understand/can't explain the science) there's a high level of sugars/fructans in the grass. Think its something to do with the frost influencing the way the grass uptakes on fructose, and the sunshine exacerbates it. With a laminitic, the advice was to wait until after the frost had subsided.

So perhaps this is an explanation?

My two are fruitloops at the moment. Clipped them both yesterday (so now the weather will freeze till Christmas - sorry folks :)) which added to the fizz. We did a ride we normally do in one and a half hours, in an hour this morning. Then they spent the rest of the afternoon bucking, farting & hooning around the field.
 
That was my thinking. I used to have a lami pony too and was told to keep her off the frosty grass. Just goes to show how much sugar there can be in the grass. He was like hed drunk a bucket of redbull! xx
 
My old boy used to be very on his toes in the frosty cold weather. My girl now doesn't seem to get too fussed by it, but the minute the wind and rain appear she turns into a maniac!
 
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