What about the horses? - Azadi Far Ride

Honestly, they thrived!

The main thing I was worried about was hydration and GI issues. Glory is known to have a hydration issue, tying up earlier in his career and sometimes looking like he’d dropped a body condition score at the end of a competition. Then there is his daily topline fluctuations, also linked to hydration levels. Melika was prone to GI and immune issues.

Feed and Supplements

But with the support of Natures Farmacy Revitalyte, Gastroclean and Marine Calcium, I didn’t have any issues. They didn’t refuse a single water source from heavily chlorinated town water to murky puddles. Which was surprising, because they’ve done this while competing.

The variety in foraging they were exposed too, coupled with Natures Farmacy, I feel really rebalanced their gut micro flora. That coupled with consistent long, slow exercise, especially helped Glory. He is looking his best, muscle tone wise, that he’s looked in years. I believe all horse owners should do this kind of journey atleast once with their horses. The variety in forage, long slow exercise and new scenery each day, means the horses absolutely glowed.

Feeding wise Melika was fine with a small hardfeed, electrolytes and minerals. Glory was on 4-5kg of JTJ Alfalfa Plus or Prydes EasiSport per day, plus electrolytes and minerals, depending on grazing quality during the day. He gained weight, even when it was just me and him. Both these products were fibre based (Crude fibre ~30%) and grain-free. You can’t feed hay or chaff to your horses on the stock routes, unless it has been processed into cubes or pellets. These two feeds were the most appropriate options I could find. But they did get harder to source the further south we got.

Slow travel

When I had the two horses, 30-40km/day was an okay distance. When it dropped down to just Glory, 20-25km was cruisey for him. 30km+ was alright occasionally but consecutive days were hard work. We would do 3-5 days and then have one rest day. On the occasions we had more than one rest day, I regretted it. They’d race around their yards and riding was almost intolerable with jig joggy Arab’s for the first 15-20km.

Regardless of whether I had two horses or one, I always swapped and/or dismounted after an hour and walked for an hour. My knee was a pretty good time limit reminder. Every hour we also grazed for a few minutes if I felt like they hadn’t done sufficient snatch and grabs. When it was both horses we stopped for a midday break for around an hour. When it was just Glory and me, we stopped every 2 hours for about half an hour.

We usually traveled for about 7 hours a day. Departing around 8:30-9am and arriving at the overnight camp spot around 3-4pm. The long days were up to 5:30pm. If I wanted to do a faster pace (trot or canter), this was done in the morning hours (before 11am) while it was cooler, and only if the area was suitable.

In the end Melika did almost 600km and Glory did a little over 1000km. A bit shorter than the over 1200km planned route. Their injuries were both minor and common injuries they’ve also sustained as paddock injuries at home.

I was glad to have Natures Farmacy Infection and Immune Support Tonic on hand. Melika improved dramatically the days following injury and Glory’s puncture injury cleared up in 2 days (previous times at home, it took a week or more!).

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