Is it possible to....

chickeninabun

chickeninabun

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get my AQH mare fitter and slimmer with the limited time I have available??
With a young family I only get to ride about twice during the week and once at a weekend, usually hacking. Am hoping to try and get up very early (5am!
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) a couple of mornings a week too, whilst it's still light, and school for about 30-40 mins.
Can anyone suggest some good excercises to do that will fitten her up and slim her down with limited time?? Please don't suggest trotting up hills, as these are a rarity in the Vale of York!!!
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how limited is your time?
you cant really rush fitness, you also risk injury to your horse if you push beyond what she can cope with at her current level of fitness.
if you cant ride her daily maybe try and find a good sharer?
 
When I do go to ride, I can easily ride for an hour or so, but it's just I can't do it everyday.
Yes, I understand I can't push the horse too far and I am not in a particular rush to get her fit. Am looking at it more as a long term thing, so I have no real deadline to stick to.
I have a sharer. She rides on a saturday, sometimes
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. She is family
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. Have asked her to do more but...
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Is it possible for you to restrict her grazing....starvation paddock (electric fence a section of her field) grazing muzzle?, get someone to bring her hin for the daytime an stable her with a bit of food and water?...but that depends on your situation..own field,livery, own yard etc.

Lunging her everyday will certainly help, its quick (no brushing, no tacking up etc etc) specially on an arena surface (if you have a ménage) as its harder for them and more tiring if its deep going, also this will muscle and supple her up more anyway, but start with small sessions as expecting her to do 20 minutes on the lunge might be too much for her if she's carrying a lot of weight/unfit etc not to mention put her off the idea and make sure you keep your circles large, so its easy for her to prevent any injury or soreness the next day.
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Lots of exercise is all good and well but you also need to adjust her diet also if its a case of obesity, there is a horse on our yard, its gets exersised nearly everyday (plod round the village and the occasional trot!)...but he's still getting fatter because they are not restricting his grazing nor exercising him correctly...but thats another story lol.
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By AQH I presume you mean quarter horse.
We were advised to get ours really fit by the vet, to try and see if we could improve her noisy breathing after a virus (which she'd completely recovered from otherwise).
We just canter, canter and more canter. Most QHs would rather canter than trot anyway, and if you've got space there's a million and one exercises you can do in canter - transitions, counter canter, increase decrease circles, pole work (even if strictly forbidden from jumping as it might spoil her trail work like ours !!!!!).
Give her lots of breaks to start with - you can do lateral or suppling work at the walk in between.
Also, altho ours is an exception QHs do tend to be fatties - we only feed a small scoop of meadow blend am&pm and make up with good haylage and all of ours are fit coping with a busy competition schedule.
If you'd rather hack and the goings good enough do some really long trots - that's how we used to get the hunters fit when I was working with horses. Alternatively you can do your canter work in a field - unless she's the rare sort of QH that hots up!
 
Yes she is a quarter horse, and a complete fatty with it!
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I do like hacking but the only two off-road routes near me have recently had stone/rubbished dumped accross them and are now virtually impassable!
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So maybe lots of canter work in the field is a good idea, and quite enjoyable for me too. Oh, and she is definately not the sort that hots up. She likes a good jump and you can tell she is enjoying it but I don't think she'd ever summons up enough energy to tank off with anyone!
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Her owner (myself & family member share her off her actual owner) doesn't like to seperate the field off but she does come in during the day most of the time. Altho her owner still likes her to have a feed at least once a day (handful HiFi Lite, a scoop of nuts & a scoop of mix) but personally I don't think she needs it at all.
I could lunge her at least once a week, altho don't have a menage, but could use the field.
Thanks for the advice anyway. I'll hopefully, one day, be posting some fab before and after pictures!
 
My bad for one word answers! Perhaps the better term would have been pole-work, which is excellent flatwork exercise (and not just for show-jumpers!). It can help to get horses to watch where they're going, to flex and stretch out or collect and lift, develop rhythmical paces, strengthen up their back muscles and really pick up their legs, so it would be a lovely way to introduce variety.

Some pole-work ideas:
- Scattering poles around the school whilst you do general exercises, so she thinks about where she's putting her feet (plump sand over the ends to stop them getting kicked about)
- One pole by itself - walk and trot over it until you get confident
- Two poles (together: ll) to encourage a little lengthening of stride at walk and trot, then
- Three poles (together: lll) to lengthen even more
- Arrange poles like wheel-spokes and walk around the very outside tip, moving inwards in a gradual spiral, then back outwards (here's a pic but ignore the fact that it's at lunge)
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- You can do the same at trot, but the size of the wheel and the number of poles determines how hard the work is and how lengthy or collected the stride needs to be, so for the first few times make the wheel quite large, with fewer poles; perhaps four on a 20m circle
- When you get more confident, canter them, add/remove poles, change the wheel-size, etc.
- Make two wheels so that you have a figure eight - walk, trot and if ready, canter this too
- Walk/trot serpentines between poles spaced 2.5m apart so that you're really working towards pirouetting at each turn
- Make half a wheel (three poles) for each bend of a full-sized serpentine - do this at walk, trot and if ready, at canter
- Make two 10m boxes, one at each end of the school, and use them as 'transition zones' - trot in, halt, trot out, then walk in, halt, trot out, etc. (If you feel brave, put one of them into a corner and work on active transitions whilst still maintaining a good bend - my nightmare!)

There's lots more you can do and you're only limited by what you can dream up.
 
Does sound like too much feed for a quarter horse...probably half that would be enough, particularly if she's out at night (they love stuffing themselves with grass!)
Good luck...would love to see some piccies of her.
 
Thanks Chillidragon, that's really helpful. Loads of ideas to get my teeth into. I really think pole work would help her listen to me more, as she can be very lazy.
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