Turning out on a hill. Good or bad?

Mine lives on a hill and since he got moved to it, he gained muscle everywhere. He did outgrow his rugs, but he stopped injuring himself so much. Now his only injuries are bites from other horses when he tries to play and they want to sleep/eat.
 
Watching this thread with interest. I would always happily turn out on a hill but now my old boy is 24 and has hock issues. At the moment he is turned out on a slight hill and he is doing great. The yard owner wants to move him onto a really steep hill and I am really worried that he won't manage.
Anybody have a horse with hock issues what do you think? Is a hill good for them or back for them?
 
Well, you'll just have to try and see. Loads of horses here on our hills - some very old at 35 - as you can imagine some have passed away but none because of the hills themselves. Most have arthritis and tendon problems. Horses are well adapted to hills.
 
We have ours at home. The track is on a hill. They are out 24/7. Sometimes I cringe at them racing down the bottom and sliding to a stop. But so far (touch wood) no problems.
 
Current fields are on a hill, depending on what side and where on the hill you get depends on how wet they are. Some fields can be very boggy and I do know one or two horses who have gone lame as a result of the steep slope and boggyness of the ground.

B has generally been fine on the hill, but he does hooly and he does slide down it. He was recently diagnosed with arthritis in his coffin joint and is only just starting back into light work this year so I have asked for a flatter field this year in the hope that if he does hooly it's not on as steep a slope. we are on the side of a mountain so it can get quite steep, and tbh I don't think my knee could cope with going up and down the hill every day either!
 
tallyho! said:
Yes def... the killer really is the owners climbing up to fetch them!
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I certainly did lose a lot of weight over summer when I was up and down the hill at least twice a day lol, had lovely toned legs too!

Sadly, I am struggling to put much weight on my bad leg without going up and down the hill. Was looking forward to my hill workout this summer too :(
 
mudmonkey17 said:
Watching this thread with interest. I would always happily turn out on a hill but now my old boy is 24 and has hock issues. At the moment he is turned out on a slight hill and he is doing great. The yard owner wants to move him onto a really steep hill and I am really worried that he won't manage.
Anybody have a horse with hock issues what do you think? Is a hill good for them or back for them?
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I had a horse with hock spavin at ten and my vet at the time told me to get him of the hills. The spavin was not caused by the hills, it was caused by him eventing with a far from perfect conformation. I would not put an old horse with any issues of any kind out on a steep hill. Are there flat areas in the field ?
 
ycbm said:
I had a horse with hock spavin at ten and my vet at the time told me to get him of the hills. The spavin was not caused by the hills, it was caused by him eventing with a far from perfect conformation. I would not put an old horse with any issues of any kind out on a steep hill. Are there flat areas in the field ?
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My old boy had spavins, and did great for 2.5 years turned out 24/7 on a fairly steep hill. It did have some flat areas too. It kept him moving, especially with the water trough at the top.

I moved him to a small yard for other reasons, but judging by how hard he ultimately found it getting up from a snooze in his gently sloping paddock, there's no way he'd have managed on the hill.

My younger horse also did his DDFT hoolying down the hill with his other buddy. I know this can happen in any field, flat or sloping, but it would make me think twice if I were to get more horses in the future.
 
Thanks for the reply will have to just see how he goes. There is not really any flat bits and is quite uneven which is my worry. He struggles with getting downhill. He also has ringbone in front.
He was in this same field last year and struggled a bit but I put it down to the rock hard ground and the fact that his joint injections had worn off as had been 2 years since he had his hocks done.
 
I've had a few who were raised in really steep hill fields and they have been so well balanced when I started riding them. Once in particular was like a mountain goat, incredibly sure footed.
 
popsdosh said:
Just reinforces my views on how most dressage bred dumbloods are brought up im afraid.
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Yes, reminds me of our old greyhound. We got her straight out of training and it took her about 2 years to get the hang of the real world, how to go around things, run slow enough to be able to stop etc. The first week we had her she managed to run head first into a tree for no obvious reason except she wasn't looking where she was going.
 
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