Difficult situation

[pony girl]

Right here goes My advanced dressage horse is a school horse in a very reputable establishment. He has been there about six months, when he got there he was overweight. He started to slim down nicely but has now gone the other way!!! He isn't ribby just lost alot of topline, he has two 45 min lessons a day and is fed slow release cubes,chaff,sugar beet and Bailey's Outshine.(I added the outshine when I realised the weight was dropping off) He gets hay but unfortunately doesn't go in the field at the mo which worries me. It seems to me that they haven't got the work/feed ratio right??. Now Im not stupid and I realise that going from virtually hacking about to working 1 1/2hrs a day with no turn out is going to affect his weight but I didn't expect this. He is a chunky Dutch Warmblood but currently looks like an eventer ready for BadmintonHe does need alot of work as he is extremely sharp!!!, he feels well and I had a great lesson on him today then hacked. So am I being neurotic??

 

[JFTDWS]

hard to say if you're being neurotic without some idea of what his condition is like in real terms. why not condition score him properly - then you can work out whether you are looking at him expecting him to be fat and thinking the absence of fat is skinny, or whether he actually needs to gain weight.

 

[be positive]

Is he on loan or working livery as it will make a difference to some extent how much influence you can have over his management.

11/2 hours work should not be too much as there must be warm up cool down time involved, hopefully, I would not expect a horse at advanced level being used as a schoolmaster to lose his topline even if he was lean he should be working correctly and his muscle tone should still be good.

Do they feed plenty of hay, many yards do restrict hay and then the sharper ones lose weight as they cannot have more hard feed to make up for it.

I would talk to the YO about your concerns and see if he can get some time out, most areas are now dry enough for horses to get out even a few hours each day would help.