When you are riding horses, in competition, you are riding an athlete. If you are using your horse to gather cattle, work the ranch or check fences, you are riding an athlete. In my opinion, all horses are athletes! Well, broodmares may not but they are still carrying around a lot of extra weight!!!! I do have a point… hold on…
Any time you stress your body to achieve a goal, your body must recover. Wether it be to get those miles in or finishing the fence that you have been building, your cells NEED to recover! Same goes for animals! Throw in some aches and pains…. and think about how you feel the next day! But, you as a human, can make the choice to lay low or push past. Our animal athletes do not get that choice. So how do we help them? What’s the game plan? Do you want your equine partner to have a bad day? Let’s see if I can help with that!
So I have 3 geldings, Gabe who is now 20, Splash who is now 19 and Lynx sitting at 14! Seems odd that everything in my pasture is finished out training wise! Such a change for me! Anyhow, these geldings all have various things going on. Old injuries causing arthritis, being power houses when you ride or in Gabe’s life, being fat and lazy! Because I use my horses for lessons and two of them for barrel racing, I need to keep them feeling their best! First I will say, they are on an excellent feeding program! Next I will say they are ALL ON SUMMIT!!!!!! Summit has changed their lives! www.summitjp.com/resbarrelracing
Summit has helped them recover, restore and perform to their best of their abilities! It’s truly an amazing product! It is Chondriton 4 Sulphate! There is now a human product as well! Pure C4S!
So not only do I choose to take care of these equine athletes biologically, I also choose to work them out. Each horse has their own plan. Obviously, Gabe gets less work outs than the other two! Lynx gets the most! Splash gets at least 3 days a week! But I always start out with walking then trotting then loping. Lynx’s workout goal is 3 miles. Splash’s goal is also 2.5-3 miles and Gabe is more like 1.5 miles. I found that getting their heart rate and respiratory system moving helps them during the work day as well!
As far as soreness issues, I have found that for both me and my horses, Summit if helping beyond all expectations! I noticed that they are more eager to work out on day two. They are not near as grumpy on day two as they were before Summit came into our lives!!!! Lynx can easily handle a two day race now and even a three day! He no longer stocks up in his stall or fizzles out on the second/third run! 😱 Splash is just ready to rock out! I have to slow him down a little to get him to warm up! But he is a lot more consistent in his warm ups now!
Overall, I feel like we may be expecting our horses to recover and repeat without thinking about how they feel. By adding in something to help with recovery, you will be helping them to be their best!
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