During the winter it is hard not to get that feeling of being out of shape. The same goes for the animals. For a draft horse it is really easy to loose muscle tone and get over conditioned. Over conditioned is just a very polite way to say fat. It is especially important to keep farm horses in good shape because one of the hardest jobs they will do all season is in the spring during plowing. At Wagner we will do some of the plowing with the horses and some of the work with our tractors. Still the ponies can get over conditioned if we don't make the effort to keep them in harness and working during the cold winter months. One of the workouts that we have them do is pull an old tractor tire. The tire, which I nabbed from my dad weights a couple hundred pounds. We chain the tire to what is called a fore cart and that gives the drivers somewhere to sit and control the team. With the ground frozen and a fluffy coat of snow on the ground the workout was not too hard for the horses today.
