How much to feed?

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My mare is a 15.2hh thoroughbred and at 8yo she seems to have a tonne of energy in her right now, making her a handful both on the ground and in the saddle. At the moment she is out 24/7 (on good grass) with a handful scope of hard feed every morning and no hay. Does she need the hard feed? She's ridden twice a day at the moment (about 30mins tops each) because I'm on holiday and have more time but also because she is really fit at the moment and I don't want her to loose it! Plus, I feel like at the moment if I only rode her once a day she'd be a nightmare..:mad::(
However, once off of holidays, she'll only be ridden once a day which should be... interesting;)...
I was planning on maybe not giving her the hard feed and trying to ride her more intensely for the 30mins I do ride??
Advice?
 
If you are riding for 30 minutes you need to warm up for ten minutes and cool down for ten minutes, so there is only ten minutes to "work"
I am not convinced she is fit, she is more likely to be too fizzy, due to too much energy in her diet and too little exercise.
I would make sure you don't feed anything with molasses, just a bit of chaff and some minerals when you bring her in.
Is there any reason why you don't take her out for long hacks?
 
Your exercise regime does sound rather unusual, as above 30 mins with a proper warm up, cool down means very little decent working time, you also make no mention of hacking I would expect a fit horse to be hacking for a couple of hours several times a week, especially while you have plenty of time on your hands, my horses will do 1 hour school work comfortably or longer hacks at this time of year on no feed living out 24/7 and none of them are "really fit" they are competing at low levels and fit enough for that.

If you want her to learn to settle you need to make better use of the time you do work her and if riding twice suits you then make one a decent long hack to get her out up some hills using herself and her mind rather than 2 short schooling sessions that are probably winding her up more than tiring her out.
 
Sorry, I meant that the 30 minutes is the "work" and we have 10 minutes either side of warm up and cool down time :-)
She is very fizzy in these 10 minutes though as she prefers to get going without "fuss"
I only got her recently (about a week) and we're having some issues in that she doesn't listen and bombs off at times after a spook so I haven't taken her for any hacking which I know would benefit her. I'm thinking of asking someone at the yard to accompany me on a long hack to begin with as I get used to her.
 
Thanks for the advice, I hadn't thought that the two sessions are probably winding her up, good point. I'm going to try and ride her once today, but for an hour with the warm up and cool down and arrange a long hack with someone at the yard in a few days.
I'm not always the most confident and so when she does get 'fizzy' I get a bit scared and I think maybe that's lead to me wanting shorter working times, I'm going to really try and stick it out!
 
i'd cut the hard feed, just do a handful of balancer if needed. with my tb, some days we just do a lot of long slow canter work to burn off his excess energy. if you have a hill thats the best thing to use. def get her out hacking, even short ones with company at the start.
 
You've got an NH practitioner out according to your other post which is great. Cut out the hard feed if you can - but you also need to keep to the routine she is used to at your trainers yard - especially as she is going back there again in a few weeks. It could be that too much grass is part of the issue. If she is stabled more and fed there then it would be better to keep to that. Riding twice a day is quite unusual and could well be winding her up - see if you can keep to the schedule she had before and worry about changing things when she is with you for more than three weeks.

Hacking is a good idea - but from your description on your other post that might be a step too far for you both just at the moment. Just keep things slow and steady. She's not likely to loose any significant fitness - but with your other issues it might be a good idea to let her down a bit just now anyway.
 
I've cut the hard feed at the moment and am only riding her once a day if that but mainly focussing on groundwork which I think she'll benefit from.
 
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