Swimming for horses

[Tiarella]

Has anyone taking their horses swimming?

There is a local horsey swimming pool and was going to take my pony swimming to try and improve his back end. He had had a while off work and lost lots of muscle around stifle area - will swimming help build this up?

 

[stencilface]

I would try a water treadmill first as these imho are meant to be better to build up the back end. Swimming pools can also develop the muscle underneath the neck which a water treadmill won't.

This is the one near me for an eg http://aldhammillequestrian.co.uk/ts/TS.html

 

[Tiarella]

Yes I agree, physio says pools are good and bad, if I swim my horse once a week for his back end and then ride/lunge rest of week to help topline it should be okay.

Just looked for water treadmills and they're all very far away from where I live.