Its coming on summertime guys so its good to know when you should and shouldn’t be riding based on the temperature. If you are hot, your horse is hotter. Did you know horses overheat 10x faster than humans?

It only takes about 17 minutes of medium intensity exercise in hot and humid weather for your horse to overheat.

Humid weather mixed with high temperatures can be especially dangerous because the humidity in the air slows the evaporation of sweat making it harder for your horse to cool down. 

It can be very serious if your horses body temperature increases from 100°F to 105°F.

Horses suffering from excessive heat stress can experience hypotension, colic and renal failure.

Working muscles can reach temperatures of nearly 110°F which is the temperature at which muscle proteins start to cook.

Horses can sweat up to 15-20 liters/ hr in cool/dry conditions and up to 30 in hot and humid conditions.

The salt in horses sweat is 4x more concentrated than in humans, meaning they lose more salt meaning it’ll have to replaced. Having a salt block near a water trough can help with that, or using granulated salt in their feed also helps.

Temp + Humidity: Add the temperature and the humidity and that number will tell you if its too hot to ride your horse. if the number is 130+ riding would put your horse at a serious risk of overheating.

130 and below: You’re good to go, ride on!!

The best way to cool your horse is to hose them off with cool water, scrape the extra water and repeat. Your horses temperature will drop by 2° every 10 minutes by using this method, feel free to hose yourself too depending on how hot you are!!