[7HL]

If you take a break in your horses training, how much does your horse loose. How much does a horse retain? Is a break in a horses training helpful or a setback?

[7HL]

I have the ability to ride and train all year. We have some great indoor facilities. Some people however are talking about cutting back and picking back up in the spring. I feel for me and our horses not to take a break. Any thoughts?

[Cowgirl2135]

Usually I would give dayoffs for my horses.
But I have to work most of my horses. I have reiners, cutters, cowhorses, they NEED to be worked.
If I don't work them enough, they will have to much engery, so I work them until they drip sweat. I give them 2 days off of riding(so that is lunging), and 2 day of of NOTHING,
SOme of my horses I can let him have a dayoff for a month and hop on him bareback and go for a ride.


If I was "training" that is a different story. I ground work them when they are little tiny babies until they get old enough and mature enough to ride.
I give 10-15 rides as a 2 years old, than I wait another year and go back to riding, during that year, more ground work.

[Lopin' Leopard]

I've noticed it usually helps to work a horse in training every other day. It just seem that a horse processes more. I have a 3 rd old filly that has only 13 rides on her since the begining of August, shes remembered everything. Horses dont forget much. They might "test" you when you go to ride after a long break but after you let them knoe you haven't forgotten how to ride they're fine. I'm riding my 6 yr old paint who's very well trained (2 yr under saddle) and he's doing better every time I ride. Depends on the horse though I know one that has to be worked everyday for her to show her best.

[Blistering Winds]

Depends on the horse and the amount already on the horse.

I started my mare in September saddle breaking. Went to December when I got on her for the first time. Then left her alone for 3 weeks while I went home. Came back, she was 10 times BETTER for me after the break.

Work with another mare, gave her a WEEKEND off, she was doing great before, came back and she tries to kill me.

Blister, well, if you give him a day, he'll take a week!

Just all depends on the horse.

[wyldterv]

I find that if you're working with a young horse or working on a difficult problem with an older horse, once they've started to get the concept you're working on, give them a week or so off to 'digest' what you were working on and you'll find they pick up where you left off and progress with less stress and less 'fight'.

Horses have very strong memory capability for things. Hence why a horse who was attacked by a dog on a spot on a trail may have been ridden 10K times since and is GREAT but if you go back to the spot on that trail, 10 yr later, will act out some. They remember all things associated with that spot on the trail, good and bad. That's how they survive in the wild... "cougar attacked from this box canyon, cougars live in this box canyon, let's not go BACK here EVER"...it's a self preservation mechanism.

Think about this... when YOU are at work or in school, don't YOU do better ultimately with some time off, just to yourself? Dogs and horses need breaks too

[Moostang]

I find it depends on the horse and the stage of training you are in, with my new gelding, he got a 2 week break recently and I felt I was set back several weeks in our training, just when I got him to stop bucking at the canter when did a few laps of a bucking canter. However the last horse I had he got over a month off after my injury and I don't think I lost a step with him when I got back on him.

[wyldterv]

Something I think about 'set backs' is that they're NOT really set backs at all. If my horse regresses a bit from a break in training, then that just shows me that what I THOUGHT was there, wasn't really there

I like to find out where the holes are in my animals training (dogs and horses alike). If I go along for 5 ms straight working with day here and a few days there off but never any real break (2 wks or longer) I may never find out that my animal WILL blow up on me over a particular issue until maybe the day I'm in a competition or on a trail ride. So if I see some regression in where we were to where we are after a bit of a break, that is not a set back to me, it's proof of what I still need to work on and the fact that HOW I was working on it prior wasn't fully getting the point across.

So to me it's a positive not a negative

[Threedaychick]

My horses are not young, or problem horses, but I love giving them breaks in the winter and the summer, usually no riding for a week or two and then just playing around, working on my position, things that they enjoy. My horses train and show very hard in the spring and fall as event horses and just like people it is very easy for them to become "burned out" by over training. There is no reason in this day and age that a horse needs to over work. If they get too much energy, turn them out for the entire day and cut back on their grain amount for the period that they are not working. My horses come back fresher and more willing to move up to the next level, or just learn newer harder material.

[AshsStorm]

Wow.. I must be lucky! I could stop riding Stormy for a year and when I got back on him, he'd be exactly the same or better then when I stopped riding him. I broke him when he was 14, he's now 15. I guess he just likes to please =)