How many days off for your ponies?

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Sophiecollins11

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I was just wondering how many complete days off do your ponies get a week? By this I mean no riding or lunging or exercise :)
And what work do they do during the rest of the week? Do they compete? Or are they happy hackers? ;)
 
My pony gets one day off a week at the moment, he's a fairly unfit youngster so I try to do as much as I can to improve his fitness and keep him learning new things without him getting too exhausted and/or bored. We've just started cantering out hacking, so for the moment I'll probably be aiming for 2 schooling sessions a week (20-30 minutes, walk and trot), 2 longer/harder hacks (1-1.5hours, walk trot and canter) and 2 shorter/easier hacks (40mins-1hour, walk and trot), then one day just for cuddles ;) . I'm also trying to compete him (dressage) once a month. He seems to be coping with it quite well, but we have just started him on sugar beet for that little bit of extra energy :)
 
No work at all is rare outside of the school holidays, I try to at least move her about the round pen or do some other form of ground work every day. the school holidays do change that a little, I prefer to give a week or 2 off a couple of times per year.
we have at least one day per week where we just go for a pootle though.
Mine was not backed till almost 6 yrs old as she was not mature and balanced enough and for a 5yr old I would say you are doing a lot and if he is feeling like he is lacking in energy give him a couple of weeks off and he will probably come back to work better, he may be having a growth spurt?
Edited due to reading you other thread
 
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anywhere between none and 6 :D :p I have two in work at the moment and they both compete but not eventing only SJ/showing/dressage so don't need to be super fit. One I mainly hack as I've had him 10 years now and we know we can still compete off no schooling and to be honest I'm competing at a much lower level than I was 3 years ago with him. The other I mainly school or jump and hack about once a week. He's new to me, learning about dressage and I'm learning about jumping. He gets worked every other day minimum- it's the other that some weeks is only worked once.
 
My 4 yo usually has Tuesday and Thursdays off, a lesson once a week then mainly schooled/ hacked in the fields the rest of the week, I expect she'll stay in work untill the autumn and then i'll turn her away for a couple of months
 
3 -4 days a week of work. So 3-4 days a week off!
They do endurance ad it is possible to get them VERY aerobically fit on three days a week.
Then again, I am not trying to teach them new skills as people who ride dressage or event are (although we do try and hit the arena once a week). This might explain why it took us till hew 7 to get a consistent left canter lead.. :)
 
when we're competing a lot he gets one day off per week or even every 10 days sometimes. ATM I've got too many other things to think about (getting married in a couple of weeks and having a complete meltdown about it) and am quite stressed so he's getting 2-3 days off per week. Most of our work ATM is hacking - our flatwork has gone completely to pot as I'm stressed with work and wedding stuff so not in the right frame of mind. When I've schooled it's just been a battle so am going to leave it until after the honeymoon when I will hopefully be a bit more chilled out!

Normally he'd be schooled x3 with hacks after to cool off, jumped x1, 1 lesson or competition plus a couple of decent long hacks.
 
Thanks everyone :) at the moment my boy gets 2 days off a week but after I go on a two week holiday (he's not going to be worked during that eeek) I'm thinking of cutting it down to 1 day off a week? He really enjoys his work and I'm tryi to vary it as much as possible but just wanted to see what others do :) I'm confident now that he's gonna live on one day off a week ;)
 
All my old threads are from a while ago when I first brought him and kept him at the riding school where he used to work, it turned out he was just sour to the school as he was bored of going round the same place for almost five years of his life! But a lot of things happened very quickly their and we moved yards just over a week ago and I have already seen such a difference and he's enjoying his work again :) he's going to have 2 weeks off in about a weeks time too as I'm going away :)
 
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