Belgian Draft Cross

Question
I just bought a 5-year old Belgian Draft Cross.  His previous owner, a 17-year old girl, rode him very sparingly in dressage.  He is fairly out of shape and needs to drop a few pounds.  I am working him harder than his previous owner -- lessons and ring work (English equitation) at least twice a week, and trail riding on weekends.  The weather has been warm to hot here this summer.  He sweats profusely and has already lost about 100 pounds.  Is this a good thing?  Is this a sign that he is becoming more fit?  Is it to be expected that Belgians, due to size, should sweat a lot when being worked?  We started him on electrolytes to compensate for the sweating.  I want to get him into shape, but I don't want to abuse him.  Any thoughts on how I should do this?  Thanks, Tom

Answer
Hi Tom,

Thanks for your question.

How long have you had your horse?  100lbs (roughly 50kg) is a huge amount of weight for a horse to lose in a short time as he is still being worked on a fairly light schedule.  It really depends on how long you've had him and been working him as to whether it is healthy or not.  If he's lost this weight over a month or two then that's fine, but any shorter than this and you should continue to monitor him carefully.

Horse can lose litres of sweat in a workout and hot weather only increases this.  I would keep him on the electrolytes and reassess him come winter.

As to getting him fit, it's a fragile balance between nutrition and exercise.  Make sure that you are feeding him a diet sufficient to his exercise levels and slowly build his work up.  It will take a bit of time, but he'll soon be fit enough for your purposes.

It's all just commonsense really.

Good luck!