How do you handle the off season?

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Karen
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How do you handle the off season?

Post by Karen » Wed Dec 31, 2008 8:21 am

How often do you ride? Do you make an effort to keep your horses in shape during the winter? Give them some down time, then build them back up before the season starts? Turn them out to pasture until the first trial?
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ezzy333
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Re: How do you handle the off season?

Post by ezzy333 » Wed Dec 31, 2008 10:05 am

Mine were always turned out inthe fields where they had to search for feed during the day. Shoes were pulled and they were givenaccess to good hay at night. When the fields were buried in snow the hay was advailable all the time and a small amount of grain was fed in the evening. Never had a problem with them being out of shape. And occasionally they were riden but quite often driven on a sleigh or wagon. If the roads were icy we did put shoes on with the pointed inserts if needed.

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Re: How do you handle the off season?

Post by RayGubernat » Thu Jan 01, 2009 9:40 pm

I typically pull the shoes after the last trial in April and they run barefoot all summer. They have about four acres of pasture to run around in so they don't get real far out of shape. I don't ride too often in the off season by myself, but when my son and daughter-in -law come down they almost always want to ride them, soooo a couple days before they come down I make some wet saddle blankets, especially on the horse Melissa rides.

Getting them into shape is not all that hard because I road dogs off the horse starting about a month before the season, and will also free run the dogs , again off the horse. By the time the first trial is running, they are OK for at least four hours, probably more, and after a few weeks, they are fine for all day, unless the conditions are really bad.

For the first time, I pulled the shoes after my last November trial and will not get them shod again until I know I am going to somewhere that has a lot of rocky areas. Most of the places I ride and trial are pretty soft and easy on a horse's feet, so I may not shoe them agan until the fall.

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Re: How do you handle the off season?

Post by SeniorCoot » Mon Jan 05, 2009 6:13 am

We don't trial our horses- just use them in spring -summer fall- for riding and hunting in west- after season we pull shoes and they are free to roam our 80 acres-it's hilly so they keep in fair shape till we go south in n\late March. For 7-8 mos they eat pasture and in winter we feed round bales and small amount of sweet feed once a day except for retired guy who gets grain and Senior feed twice daily-if he shows up at corral.

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tenbearsviz
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Re: How do you handle the off season?

Post by tenbearsviz » Mon Jan 05, 2009 8:22 am

Karen,

We sort of have similar issues although our "winter" is HOT instead of cold like yours.

Normally we remove shoes if they have them to try and rebuild split damage. They turn into law ornaments until September (which is our spring). We then work the dogs and horses together to get ready for our season. By end of Oct, they are back into the swing of it.

I am just a weekend warrior so this plan works for me. We occasionally with take the horses to sort cows or trail ride but mostly they are on vacation.

Don

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