How long do you wait after feeding before you ride?

[Laura+Phantom]

I'm talking about feeds with concentrates in, by the way.

I, as a rule, wait 2 hours, because a large starchy meal is hard to digest, and fills the stomach, which could impair breathing when moving at speed and restricting the diaphragm. Also, horses aren't designed to eat big meals and then move.

My friend was talking to me today and I said I had fed Saphy and put her out this morning and then didn't ride for 2 hours as she'd just her brekkie, and by then it had become gale force wind and rain outside, so I didn't ride. She spoke to me as if I was stupid "Well every single place I have worked at ride their horses after an hour and I always ride **** after an hour and he's fine!"

I said riding schools often do things wrong :rolleyes: and research has shown it takes a long time to digest a cereal feed. She didn't really care what I had to say unfortunately. I know her horse has 2 large scoops of veteran mix + sugar beet + chaff as well.

So how long do you wait after feeding? I'm not an idiot for waiting 2 hours am I? If it was just chaff and sugar beet I wouldn't wait long at all as that's fibre but cereals are different....

[Showjumper]

I don't ride after feeding, I feed after riding :) Makes life much easier - plus Dolly only gets one hard feed a day so I just feed her in the evening :)

[Laura+Phantom]

I would do that too but Saphy has 2 feeds a day, I don't like riding her first thing before her breakfast because she's stabled at night so I imagine she's hungry :) I don't like to ride too late in case the rain comes!

[Sammii]

Red only has enough chaff to mix his ventilate in but...in the Summer, because of how fast he eats etc and because of his respiratory problems, when i bring him in from the field, he has a wander round the yard whilst I muck out, then I groom and then I tack up etc and then ride so once he's in from the field it's normally about an hour-ish before I actually ride.

I try not to feed at all if I know I am going to ride within the next hour or so, I always feed after but not straight away, always after i've untacked etc let him cool down :)

[lizzy]

Adam has 1/4 kg nuts and 1/4 kg chaff and I only wait an hour to ride, but I think that's only a small feed compared to what some horses have. Also he doesn't always eat the chaff, he just picks the nuts out. Depends what mood he's in.

[Shadowlark]

Bearing in mind that 100 mile endurance riders often feed a cereal meal on the rest stops then carry on.. (I say often because only because most now feed a beet pulp meal not a grain meal) I would say there is some weight to your friends rather careless remarks.

I know I found a whack of info on this at some point.. I will do some digging when i get home for you.. it talked about the metabolic implications etc etc and blah blah blah ;)

[Showjumper]

I ride Dolly straight out of the stable - I always give her a huge haynet in the evenings and she normally has some left in the morning so she isn't that hungry :)