Your daily routines for Conditioning halter horses.

[Cowboy905]

Interested in hearing what everyones daily routines for working their halter horses are;

What Do you do? Longe, round pen, pony, hotwalker or something else?

Do you prefer to Trot or Canter one more?

Which gait do you find builds different areas of a horse better? i.e(Back, Shoulders, Hip, tightens them thorugh their Barrel, etc...)

How long do you work yearlings, 2 year olds and senior horses?

How many days a week do you work your horses?

Anything else helpful you do or think about when conditioning one?

Obviously things vary slightly from horse to horse but a general idea of what peoples weekly routines are would be interesting.

 

[MindyLee]

I would like to know also as I have a filly who is super refined but pot bellied when not worked

but oh is she tiny and cute at 27.75" tall

 

[Miniv]

For exercise we would use Free Longe (sp) in our arena (when we had one) and now we have a round pen. Trotting is what we encouraged because it uses more body muscles than cantering. We never pushed the yearlings too much -- started them at about 5 minutes at each direction and moved them up to 10 minutes after a week or so. We'd do it 5 days a week. Two year olds we'd keep moving them up to 15 minutes each direction.

Free Longing is also a good way to start teaching your future Liberty horse. I used signals with my whip, my hand, and body, that everyone picked up on very quickly.

MindyLee -- For your little "pot belly", in addition to exercising check her feed for protein content. If you are working her for show, she should be getting at least 14 percent protein in her grain. Often a pot belly is a symptom of lack of protein. ** We always ALWAYS fed our show horses HAY in addition to a "complete" grain **. Some trainers have chosen not to and go with either 100 percent "complete feed" with NO HAY, or they feed cubed alfalfa to substitute the hay. And folks wonder why their show horses develop ulcers??? Hello??? (Sorry, off my soapbox now.)

Keep asking questions and pick the brains of folks who have "show barns"........You'll learn A LOT!

 

[mydaddysjag]

My conditioning is a bit relaxed this year because its hard to get to the barn (I board) on the days my husband works and its extremely cold due to having an 8 month old and no heated area at the barn. Until now I was only working D every other day, he really should have been started working 5 days a week about a month ago. Below is the schedule I should be following...

What Do you do? Lunge, round pen, pony, hotwalker or something else?

Lunge, round pen, hand walk, and hunter jumps

Do you prefer to Trot or Canter one more?

Equal amounts of both. Trotting builds muscle, Cantering tucks the stomach.

I trot 5 minutes in one direction, reverse and trot the other direction, then reverse and canter, and finally reverse and canter the other direction. Frequent directions changed and gain changes help build muscle than just going in one direction.

Which gait do you find builds different areas of a horse better? i.e(Back, Shoulders, Hip, tightens them thorugh their Barrel, etc...)

Trotting builds muscle, cantering tucks stomach, cavalletti builds topline, jumps build topline and tuck the stomach, hills and backing build hind quarters,

How long do you work yearlings, 2 year olds and senior horses?

Yearlings are only free lunged in a large arena with sand base or hand walked, 14-16 minutes 5 days

Two year olds are worked 18-20 minutes 5 days

Senior horses are worked 20+ minutes, 5 days

Never two days off in a row

How many days a week do you work your horses?

5

Anything else helpful you do or think about when conditioning one?

Walking hills outside is a great way to build the hind quarters, and is a nice mental break from going in circles.

Also, make sure you have a good feed program. Nutrition is the most important part of conditioning a horse.