An excerpt from The Ultimate Guide for Horses in Need, published by Horse Nation on July 24, 2020, reprinted there with permission from Trafalgar Square Books.
Is Your Rescue Ready for Retraining?
by Stacie G. Boswell, DVM, DACVS — excerpted from The Ultimate Guide for Horses in Need (Trafalgar Square Books, 2020)
A short passage is quoted below. The full excerpt appears on Horse Nation, linked at the foot of this page.
Preparing a rescue horse to be a riding horse takes careful consideration, from nutrition to body condition to mental preparedness. In this excerpt, the question is how to know when a horse in transition is actually ready to begin retraining.
A horse is not healthy enough to begin groundwork (which should precede any ridden work) until he has a Body Condition Score (BCS) of at least 4 (moderately thin), as prior to that time, he is too weak and lacks muscle necessary for athleticism. A starved horse’s body metabolized his fat stores for energy, and used up muscle in the process known as muscle wasting.
There are instances where athletic horses have a BCS of 4 and are under saddle and ridden. I don’t recommend this for rescue horses. There is a significant difference between an extreme athlete that can hardly eat enough (think endurance horses, racehorses, upper-level eventers) and a malnourished individual that is finally on his way out of a metabolic vortex (think neglected horses). A horse with a BCS of 4 that is gaining weight is healthy enough to be trained how to carry a saddle, but not a rider quite yet.
The full excerpt covers the physical side (feet, groundwork as gradual strengthening and a soundness trial) and the mental side (tailoring the program to the individual horse, testing for fear responses with patience, and habituating to triggers with approach-and-retreat paired with positive reinforcement).
Read the full excerpt at Horse Nation. The Ultimate Guide for Horses in Need is available directly from Stacie or from Trafalgar Square Books.