Ideal weight

[ihatework]

I completely agree, lots of people overfeed and over rug horses who, quite frankly, don't need it. Yes, if you have a WB that struggles to keep weight on then fair play! But I feel a lot of people do it out of sympathy for the horse. I have a Connie mare who is a good doer, are fields have struggled a fair amount this year due to the lack of rain, I usually chuck a section of hay just to lessen the risk of anything like ulcers, etc (there was virtually no grass). She doesn't get hard feed in the summer (maybe a small sloppy daily balancer with electrolytes after a particularly hard lesson). She doesn't get fed horse treats, unless they are low calorie, usually just a nice carrot after a ride. This has really helped keep her weight down, especially after all the rain we have been having. When she came to us she wasn't particularly overweight, just under muscled as she had only hacked (short walk, maybe trot hacks) a couple times a week. She is, however, rugged during the winter as she gets a blanket clip, otherwise she gets rather sweaty. I would personally say she is in medium work, 1 flatwork session, 1 poll work session, and one jump session (each last about 45 mins) 1 day off and the rest hacking. However, I like to vary our hacking (we have incredible hacking) 1 long-distance hack a week usually 2 and 1/2- 3 hours, one stamina hack, hill work, lots of canter work (we have a mile gallop very close to the yard) where we do lots of lengthening and shortening strides/ adjusting pace. I feel everyone's opinion on light/medium/heavy work is different, how would you guys define it?

The devil is in the detail in that. Really depends on the intensity of the work.
The eventers would do that, as might the low level RC horse .... but the expectation of the work within the session would be different. One might constitute light-med, the other might be solid medium bordering on hard.

 

[Kat]

I also wonder if judges in the UK ever favored the overweight horse, or turned a blind eye, such as in halter classes in the USA.

Oh this is a MASSIVE problem. Whenever I have taken my mare showing I have been told she's too thin and needs more condition. You'd think I was starving her, but in fact she was just fit, ribs easily felt but not easily visible.