I was recently asked about how long it would take to regain muscle for a horse after a brutal winter. I asked the owner how long the horse had been out of work. The response was “about 5 years”. I realized that this poor boy would take a lot longer to regain muscle than a horse that had been out of work for a couple of months.
◆︎ Muscle:
To build and maintain muscle, consistency is the key. Once muscle loss occurs, it takes longer to create muscle fibers and increase the number of mitochondria within the muscle cells. Besides good quality protein with sufficient limiting amino acids, healthy robust mitochondria are necessary. This all takes time to develop, commonly within a month. For older horses or those with significant muscle loss, this may be several months.
Tendons and ligaments:
The muscles respond fairly quickly to increased work load. The tendons and ligaments take about twice as long to adapt to work. It’s not uncommon for the initial adaptation to take 4-6 weeks, with intermediate adaptation to take 3-6 months.
Bone:
Bone remodeling in the horse can take months to adapt to a workload. This is especially important in horses that have specialized workloads.
Take away:
As far as regaining muscle and exercise, it’s important to remember that it takes a long time for a horse to become sufficiently fit. Ensuring that the horse maintains some level of fitness is important for the condition of the horse. Walking around in the pasture is rarely sufficient because pasture size is limited and feed is readily available. Few horses walk 8-10 miles daily to get enough food, as they might in the wild.
◆︎ Balanced diet:
Consistency is also important when it comes to balancing a horse’s diet. Water soluble vitamins are not stored in the body and need to be consumed daily. One caveat to this is that bacteria of intestinal flora can create some of the vitamins.
Fat soluble vitamins can be stored in body fat. In this case, it’s important to be aware of the storage and limit the fat soluble vitamins to what the body needs. Excess amounts of the fat soluble vitamins can lead to toxicity.
Some minerals are stored in the body, such as calcium stored in the bone, but others are not stored, or are stored on a limited basis.
Take away: To ensure that your horse's enzymes have sufficient cofactors to work effectively, it’s important to consume a balanced diet on a regular basis. If the diet is lacking, supplementation may be helpful for the horse.
◆︎ Arthritis supplementation:
Some horses find supplements helpful for their arthritis. It’s important to remember that the support that supplements give is only helpful if the supplements are consumed. Some supplements, such as the bioflavonoids, work at the level of enzyme transcription. This means that it takes days to see the full effect that the supplement may have. Giving the supplement intermittently may not give the desired support.
◆︎ Building systems:
The key to consistency is to create a system that works for you. This may enable the desired results. Examples include:
➡ Create baggies that contain the vitamins, minerals, and supplements that you give. Make them up in advance, a week at a time, so that it’s easy to grab and go.
➡ Set aside a time frame on a regular basis to be sure your horse is worked. Alternatively, make a schedule that your horse can be used for lessons. Or, have someone else ride, to be sure that your horse gets the exercise he needs when you're not available.
➡ Keep a log of important horse information. This could include the trimming schedule, supplements that are needed, appointment dates for vaccines or dental work, as well as any vet work or medications that your horse has taken. By writing this down in a notebook, it will be at your fingertips when you need to access that information.
We do the best that we can for our horses. Developing systems for consistency is a part of that.
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Disclaimer: Statements regarding dietary supplements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or health condition.
©Joan Kulifay 2025