Is My Horse in light work?

Polos

Polos

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I was doing a questionnaire the other day and it asked me if my horse was in light, medium or heavy work.

My 6yr old is ridden everyday for around an hour and he goes out twice a week (once to a clinic and once to a show)

My 4yr old is ridden 4 times a week for up to 40 minutes, he doesn't compete and he does go hacking but mainly in walk.

I guessed light work for both, am I right?
 
I would say light work is ridden less often than that and for a shorter period unless you are walking for the hour?

Mine is ridden every day for an hour at least and we cover at least 10km per hour which is just about all canter and trot work, only walk if its too muddy. I don't think my horse would agree its light work ;)
 
On the back of some bag of feed I had once it said light work was hacking and schooling, medium work was hunting once a week, competing in dressage and jumping and hard work was racing, hunting twice a week and three day eventing.

On that basis I'd say you are right. I think many of us overestimate how much work our horses do.
 
My 6yr old does quite intensive work- a lot of canter work as he is currently with a competition rider

My 4yr old's work is much more relaxed. When he is schooling it is mainly walk and trot with a little bit of canter. When we go hacking its only walking as I find it more enjoyable that way and we do cover a fair bit of ground.

I think my 4yr old would argue about the bracket I put him in, he thinks he is in extra hard work, bless him!
 
unbalanced said:
On the back of some bag of feed I had once it said light work was hacking and schooling, medium work was hunting once a week, competing in dressage and jumping and hard work was racing, hunting twice a week and three day eventing.

On that basis I'd say you are right. I think many of us overestimate how much work our horses do.
Click to expand...

Which just goes to show that many of the nutritionalists do not know what they are talking about!
A horse that is hunting once a week should be getting at least 90 minutes and some of that fast work, exercise a day and that is not medium work!
A day's hunting can be a lot harder than dressage or show jumping.

I would say the younger, light work, the older medium.
 
Bizzarely it depends on who you ask...

The Pony club manual wuold put both in medium work as light work involves being ridden no more than 3 times per week. But they also class hard work as 3 day eventing etc.

The recent online Equine Nutrition Course would say light work and classes hard work as race horse only. A 3 day eventer was only medium work.

When Allen & Page came to assess my boys they told me both were in medium / heavy work. They are both ridden 6 times a week, competed or hunted pretty much every week other than for breif periods each year when turned away.

But Spillers told me the next week they thought light / medium.

So not really an exact science!
 
I think most horses doing leisure riding ie hacking and schooling are in light work. Those doing competitive or demanding stuff like hunting and eventing lowe level once a week in medium work and those doing racing, higher levels eventing, team chasing, P2P, higher distance endurance etc are in hard work

in other words probably 90% of horses are in light work! I agree with your original assessment OP altho the younger one is towards the upper end of light.

in any case it does far less harm to slightly under estimate than to over. I would go with your instinct.
 
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