Chapter 3 - Exercise and Fitness
In their natural state horses naturally move around for most of the day and possibly some of the night. Confined in a stable for at least part of the day, a horse needs additional exercise if he is to avoid becoming stiff and overweight, and losing muscle tone. Indeed, it can be dangerous for a horse to stand in a stable for several days in a row, unless it is absolutely necessary because of illness or injury.
Even a sick horse can benefit from being led out in hand for as much as the vet allows. Standing motionless or almost motionless for hours on end slows down the circulation, which can lead to a build up of toxins. When a horse stands for any length of time (as in a human being confined to bed) muscle tone is lost, and this in turn weakens the whole body. When the horse starts to work again, he will be more susceptible to injury. He will also be vulnerable to cold when he first goes out if the weather is bad. Digestive problems can occur. A healthy but inactive horse may well put on weight.
Fitness for the job
The level of fitness your horse needs is very much dependent on the job he is required to do. For example, a child's pony does not require the same reserves of speed and stamina as a racehorse. There is also the temperament and type to consider. A hardy pony, used mainly for gentle leisure riding, who keeps himself fairly active in the field does not require a specific program of fitness training for him to be able to complete his work satisfactorily. However, if he is going off for a week's trekking or trail-riding and will be ridden there for several hours every day, he will require more work in the weeks preceding in order to prepare him to cope adequately with the workload.
A horse that is to compete in an eventing competition, for example, in three months' time, requires a much more rigorous and well-planned program to ensure that he will be able to cope on the day. This should include a mixture of different types of work, including later in his training, galloping and jumping. His feeding regime needs to change to accommodate the additional work, and he may also be clipped, further increasing his food requirements.
So how do you assess your horse's fitness to do any particular job? If you are a top-class eventer or show jumper, you will already know. However, these people make up a very small part of the horse-owning population and the rest of us need more guidance. It is to be hoped that you will have purchased your horse with his eventual job in mind. If you want to go eventing, especially if you are aiming for any degree of success in competition, you will not buy a heavy horse or a pony. You will buy a Thoroughbred or a warmblood, such as a Hanoverian, who will have the potential heart and lung capacity to be trained up to peak fitness for his job. If you only want to go riding once a week, then the degree of fitness achieved by just being in the field on the other days will probably be sufficient.
Assessing fitness
Fitness in a horse shows in its ability to carry out fast or strenuous work and to recover from the effort reasonably quickly. Racehorses may well blow hard after a race (breathing quickly and heavily) but they usually rapidly regain their normal rate of breathing. By contrast, if you give an unfit horse a sudden bout of strenuous work, he will take considerably longer to recover - maybe more than a hour and you will know that he is not yet ready for that level of exercise.
Muscle tone is another good guide to general fitness levels. As you increase your horse's workload to get him fit for competition or event, or simply for more regular leisure work, you will slowly begin to see more definition in his muscles. His girth or cinch may well reduce a hole or two. This does not necessarily mean he is losing weight, because you will presumably be increasing his food to match the increase in his workload. It just means that his flab is disappearing and the muscle is toning up. With increasing fitness, he will recover more quickly from exertion and will probably be more lively when you first get on him. However, this is not always the case and some seasoned competition horses go quite quiet when they are really fit. It seems as if they know that they are settling down to the job!
Sweating is not a very accurate guide to a horse's fitness. Factors such as the temperature and the amount of coat a horse is carrying affect sweating. Also, some horses by nature sweat more than others. Often horses of a highly strung nature will sweat up simply in anticipation of the forthcoming event or even just the mere fact that they are being tacked up to be ridden can affect them. Some very fit horses sweat under pressure, no matter how fit they are. It is worth noting that sweating while at rest in cool conditions can be a sign that your horse is unwell.
Healthy feet
The essential prerequisite for fitness training is that your horse's feet should be in good order, and for this you will need the advice of a good farrier. A farriers who just comes to fit shoes is not the one you are looking for. You need an expert, who thoroughly understands the workings of the horse's body, and who is capable of ensuring that your horse is as well balanced as his conformation will allow. A horse whose feet are well cared for is much less likely to go lame under the strain of regular work.
The effects of poor shoeing
Problems with a horse's feet or with the way in which he is shod can cause lameness. If the foot is left for a long time to grow, the horse adapts the way in which he uses his body to allows for extra length of hoof. When the hooves are eventually trimmed, he has to make a sudden adjustment to a completely new way of moving that can cause strain and perhaps more serious injury. If he loses a shoe and you continue to work him without that shoe while waiting for the farrier, you will similarly alter his pattern of going. Incidentally, if you use a farrier whose shoes constantly fall off and your horse appears to have reasonable feet, then get another farrier. The average horse with good feet keeps his shoes on for the five or six weeks between shoeing.
Working without shoes
Horses need to wear shoes to stop excessive wear of the hoof when worked on metalled roads and other hard surfaces. However, in many cases a horse can go without shoes and this is often the best solution. Small ponies work well without shoes and, of course, cause less damage should they tread on children's toes! Any horse working mainly off-road or who is turned out may be better off unshod. Working without shoes should be started gradually if the horse has been shod before. He may be footsore to begin with but gradually his feet will grow harder. Even when his feet are hard, try to avoid very stony tracks, and be careful of wearing away too much foot on paved (or metalled) roads.
A note of warning should be sounded here. If you want to keep your horse without shoes, you must nevertheless have the farrier check his feet every six to eight weeks and have his feet properly trimmed to suit his conformation and type. There are a number of methods that advocate a method of foot trimming that is supposed to be natural and can supposedly be done by the owner who has been on a three-day course. Many experienced farriers and vets have criticized these methods and they are not to be recommended.
Soundness for jumping
The horse's body takes a great deal of strain when he is ridden. If he engages in activities that include jumping - whether in competion or as an element of leisure riding, he will experience more strain - strain not only on his joints and muscles but also on the tendons and ligaments that bind the two together. Although horses would normally jump streams and small obstacles in the wild, they would not of course be carrying a weight on their back. Lifting their bodyweight, plus that of a rider over a fence several feet high requires very strong leverage in the limbs, especially the hind limbs. His front legs must take the whole weight albeit for a few seconds when landing over a fence. You cannot start to train a horse that is even slightly lame: the extra strain is likely to exacerbate any problem rapidly. Take the time to carefully observe the way your horse stands and moves before you consider increasing his workload. If you are not sure if your horse is lame, seek professional advice.
Clipping
Clipping takes off some of the horse's coat so that he can work for longer without getting sweated up and stressed by heat that cannot be lost through a thick coat. While clipping is unnatural, because it inevitably means that blankets will have to be used to replace the missing coat, it is nevertheless better for a horse with a thick winter coat to be clipped if he is undertaking any strenuous work.
There are a number of different methods of clipping, from taking off just a sweat patch up the front of the chest and under the neck (this works well on children's ponies) to a full clip, which is for competition horses. Do not underestimate the amount of heat a horse loses from the parts of his body that are clipped. As well as needing blankets, he may need extra food to replace the calories that he is using keeping warm.
Tack
The other important item to consider is that your tack all fits well. A horse that has not done serious work recently will soon be rubbed by ill-fitting tack.
Starting work
As for humans, walking is superb exercise for horses. If you can ride up and down some hills, so much the better. It a very individual decision as to when to start trotting a previously unfit horse and, similarly, when to start cantering and you should be guided by your observations of your horse's responses. If he blows (that is to say breathes rapidly and in a laboured way) for more than a few minutes after you have been trotting, then it is not time to start cantering. Very fit racehorses blow for some time after completing a race, but this is because of the extreme nature of the effort required on such occasions. Generally, you should not get your horse blowing on a regular basis...
