How to Exercise a Fat Pony to Help Weight Loss

Riding a horse or pony that is overweight can be a challenging and frustrating experience. Not having suitable equipment only further complicates the problems. Read on to get some ideas on how to make the best of this situation.

Steps

1. 1 Obviously, if it can be avoided at all, do not ride with equipment that is ill-fitting. Try to use a wide-tree saddle if needed. Sometimes, it's better to ride bareback if your tack doesn't fit right. Try asking someone who would know what well fitting tack should look like on a horse.
2. 2 It is best to obtain better fitted tack before attempting to ride. Otherwise, your animal will never be able to put forth their all, and keeping them happy is pretty much impossible.
3. 3 Start out with slow, short workouts. The horse or pony will probably be in shock the first couple of times you ride it, and will give you repeated "You want me to do WHAT?!?!?" looks. Keeping the first workouts slow and short is vital to keeping the animal happy.
4. 4 It is usually best to keep the sessions to around 30 minutes or so in the beginning. Start out with lots of walking, and no more than 10 minutes of trotting. This helps give the animal time to adjust to the idea of work, and will also begin to start building muscle and working off the flab. The first week or two your pony might not be all that happy (depending on how "out of shape" they are and their attitude.
5. 5 After the first two weeks or so, you can start to slowly increase both the workout's length and the time spent trotting. It's advisable to not try cantering for more than a few minutes at this point.  
6. 6 After a month to two months, the pony should be a little bit slimmer. This will do wonders for improving his mood, since the work will be less difficult for him now that he's in better shape.

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