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[RC] Horse won't drink - Dreamweaver


 drink. Someday, I think I'd like to do another 50, but won't
until this drinking issue is a thing of the past.  Thanks in
advance! cpenguin57 @ aol . com

Cate -- my advice would be to go ahead and do a 50 on your horse. Sometimes, they need to literally go the distance and have to learn to take care of themselves. Not every horse starts out knowing how to do everything exactly right from the start. With my horses, when they did shorter distance rides they learned that they *could* do the entire ride and they didn't have to drink, or eat or do anything to take care of themselves and they did finish with all A's on their vet cards and even won horse excellence awards (what most rides in the West region gives instead of an official LD BC). It wasn't actually until they started doing multidays and the longer distance rides that they (well, Rocky) finally got with the program and really figured it out. Just make sure you start out slowly, wait for the pack to go and leave ten or fifteen minutes behind them, even longer if it's a really big ride and you want to keep your horse from seeing the horses in front depending on the trail layout. Get off and lead if you have to, but try to keep your horse calm and then pace accordingly. If you ride your own ride and try for a longer ride time (say 9 or 10+ hours) then you should not run into any problems, and you can always stop if you need to. When horses get wired mentally that can really take it's toll and do more to send them into a downward spiral than anything, which on one hands means sometimes the horse is better off continuing to move rather than be held back but it should never be used as an excuse (such as "he wanted to go so bad I couldn't hold him back, yadda yadda). If a horse is mentally 'up' it can get itself into trouble even if it's not going fast, but is much more likely to get into trouble if it is allowed to go fast, regardless of how fit or capable it is. So, take it easy, keep your horse mentally grounded and have fun. :-))

Karen
in NV


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