Very Hot TB - advice needed.

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goldengryffindor

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I have a 13yr old TB eventer (gelding), who i have owned for just over a year. I am thinking of moving towards just show jumping him as our dressage is really holding us back. It has been suggested to me that i feed him a calming supplement of some sought to him as he tends to get very hot.

He has lovely paces, however never works in a totally soft outline, and even if he warms up ok at an event he gets extremely tense as soon as he enters the ring to do his test.

He is a very bold jumper and love him for that however he can get rather hot at times and so this can affect our jumping rounds at times.

Anyway if any of that makes any sense, i would really appreciate any ideas, suggestions or past exaperience that anyone may have had in a similar situation. thanks.

(not horse in my signature by the way
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My old TB would be very hot if fed mixes, he was always alot more manageable on either Allen and Page iCalm and Condition or Baileys No 4 Topline Cubes.
 
Well we live in Australia ... so differant brands of feed. But he is fed chaff (with no lucern) and a cool mix. Just about to add in some speedy beet as he has been doing more work and its winter here. Have fed speedy beet before and it didn't seem to make him any worse or better.

He is weird because he has never ever bucked or bolted or anything, he just gets extremely tense when he is hot and jogs a lot, which doesn't really look great in a DR test.
 
A couple of things helped my tb - I changed from a normal horse and pony cube to an endurance mix and he calmed down bizarrly . Really not sure why as on paper the horse and pony cubes shouldn't do anything to buzz something up but he is really horrible on them - inattentive,takes ages to settle and just generally doesn't produce his best work. When he is on his hols he goes onto a fibre only diet of alfa a and hifi which again he is really calm on - I don't use this when he is full work as he isn't a big eater and would have to be eating a stupid amount of this a day to get enough energy. If your horse has a good appetitie then it maybe benificial to go onto this type of diet and see if it helps.
 
Im also in Aus!

Re the whole stress thing with some TB there doesnt seem to be a way around it.
What brand of cool pellets do you feed? We gave my mums boy Castlereagh(?) Cool Pellets (maybe it was a few years ago) and they made him totally psyco. He is currently on a grain mix and quite rational. He just reacted badly to the pellets, so you could try changing feed, but I dont think it will help.

I would suggest spending lots of time at home getting him to relax and stretch out at a walk, so that he gets the idea that walk on loose rein = chill. Maybe if you can get him to do this at a comp, you could warm up for your test spend 5 min chilling him out and then go in.
Or just do lots of straight DR till he gets bored and stops getting so worked up when you go in the arena

Or accept the fact that you will alwys fail the DR and just event for a very expensive pleasure or ((shudders)) go straight SJing =)
 
I have a TB who goes mad on any feed with barley in it. I put her on Alpha A and oats. Funnily enough its the only feed she has been on that seems to have struck an equilibriam with her.
 
Sadly long rein walk is rather impossible, even at home. I have worked and worked at it but with no results. In the dr test when we have to walk on a free rein he sticks his head in the air and jogs!

will have a look at what is in his cool mix. although maybe i just have to accept thats who he is!
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You will need to look at minimising the startch in his diet, this is what tends to send most horses a bit crackers.

Feeding a cereal (mix) as opposed to just a cube (pellett) will also add to the "heating" of the feed.

Have you tried a balancer (TopSpec Comprehensive/Baileys/BlueChip and the like) and then you can add bulk (weight) in the form of an Alfa-A Chaff or Moli-Chop (etc and similar) The feed balancer will give your horse all the vits and mins which he needs without feedings lots of supplements/cereals and pelletts) which will naturally reduce the startch intake.

Magnesium will assist with calmin and equine america do a magnesium based calmer as well as so kalm and so kalml plus. there is a lady at our yard who has a TB, ex racer and who can be a bit hot headded, she uses NAF Magic and swears by it. Although, with calmers, its like anything, what suits one horse will not suit another.

Def worth a look into yoru horse's diet and also his routine. Are things the same every day does he get tense at shows? You could try oxy-shot when you get to a show as this has helped "chill" some horses out when they get tense.
 
Also, because this is what I have to do with mine, and it works, practise working him at home then moving to a different area and working him, just like you would at a competition. I could warm up lovely then for it to fall apart in a test or jumping class and worked out it was the moving from one area where he had settled to another part and he got really tense again. I had to do alot of work on this but it does help.
 
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