Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

No more training rides before Tevis. Leave him alone, feed the stuffing 
out of him and go if you must, but leave him alone, and after...quit 
riding him so much...Cora

Kim Richman wrote:

> I have some questions and concerns regarding overconditioning. First 
> of all I am due to go to Tevis and my gut is telling me after todays 
> ride I have a possible overconditioned horse. My first thing of 
> concern is that he is looking on the ribby side (he looks fit and read 
> to go but I can see his ribs when he walks). I was going to do a 20 
> mile slow ride today, but going out he seemed on the flat and 
> unmotivated side and our 20 mile ride turned into about a 9 mile ride 
> (some trotting, but mostly walking took me about 2 hours to do). My 
> next thing of concern is while out on the trail while walking up some 
> of the hills his heartrate went up to between 160-175 (generally his 
> heartrate will reach those rates while trotting. Finally at about 3 
> 1/2 miles out there's a water trough that I stopped to let him drink 
> (which he didn't, but that didn't surprise me); I also wanted to see 
> how long it would take him to recover back down to 60. It took him 
> about 6 minutes to recover, going only 3 1/2 miles and not very fast 
> at that I would have expected him to recover in half the time. Any 
> input anyone can give me or what I should be doing between now and 
> Tevis would be greatly appreciated.
>  
> I plan on doing 3 maybe 4 more training rides before Tevis and plan on 
> doing mostly walking, w/ some trotting. I don't expect the rides to be 
> over 12 miles in length.
>  
> In regards to feed he's getting he's basically getting grass hay am/pm 
> w/ an extra flake in the evenings. Since I am out there every day he's 
> getting an extra flake hay (maybe between 2-4pm). He's also getting 1 
> 1/2lbs of H.E.S (this is a Dynamite product that is an excellent 
> source of fat and it is recommended you don't give more than 1 
> 1/2lbs/day) so he is getting a max of that. The days he's not being 
> ridden on top of his normal hay ration he gets about 5-7 extra pounds 
> of soaked pellets; the days I ride him he gets maybe and extra 10lbs 
> of the soaked pellets if he will eat them. He doesn't get any extra 
> grain because the grain I was giving him before was causing him to 
> have runny poops (when I eliminate the grain the runny poops went away 
> in about 2 weeks). I am thinking however about giving him some extra 
> cracked corn or barley. What are other peoples thoughts on the extra 
> corn and or barley, and how much should I give him. At this point and 
> time I would like to get a little bit of extra weight back on him 
> between now and Tevis. Just to let anyone know who reads this I won't 
> feed beet pulp, corn oil, or rice bran, so those are not an option for 
> added things in his diet.
>  
> Any opinions or advice I can get would be greatly appreciated it.
>  
> Thanks
> Kim
>  
>  
>
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