thoughts on fittening up a heavier/stuffy horse?

Luci07

Luci07

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Just if anyone has some better ideas! always had TB's or near TB's so fittening up (or more importantly maintaining fitness) was pretty straight forward. Getting my ID xTB properly fit (say capable of going round a PN course) is a constant battle and if for any reason, the interval/fast work has to be cut back, he loses fitness really quickly. He is kept in steady work all the time as he is not one of those you can chuck out and ride from time to time. Any tips? (and i promise I will read and say thank you!)
 
I feed my light/medium weight cob tiger oats. The added oomph from the oats seems to help with the stamina and her willingness to go forwards.
 
I found that hacking and doing fast work with another horse helped my stuffy horse go more forward. If I hack by myself he can tend to be backwards but having company made him work harder.

This assumes you don't usually hack/do fast work with someone already!
 
I have a similar problem, always having TB types that seemed to get themselves fit, my present horse is seriously into energy saving - his own.
I even had a remark on a dressage test about "Working trot is supposed to make them sweat" Sweat? What's that? He doesn't really need clipping.

I have found the only thing is plenty of cantering, which does make him sweat. Hill work too. And I too find that if I ease off he looses fitness very quickly.

I used to have a little TB hunter and when I turned him out every morning he would gallop round and round the field several times, have a roll and then start eating. This one just gets his head down.
 
hill work.
interval training if yu cant find any hills.
any racehorse gallops near you? not for fitness purposes but i took a very stuffy mare to the gallops before shows and it got her really razzed up and thinking forward-if you can find some on a lsight uphill slope then even better and if they are all weather you can go all winter.
 
guys - thank you very much for the ideas. We are lucky to have a lot of hills and he now finds them easy... It was the comment about keeping up the fast work which has made me think very hard to see if I am backing off too much in this weather. I have tried him on more heating food but that made him a major pain in the wotsit.. will also try the magnesium.. I haven't even been jumping him at home because of this inclement rain.

and I do sympathise about the dressage comments. I always get the " what a nice, (easy!) horse etc etc". No comments as to why we exit with me sweating buckets and red faced!
 
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