Can Horses Swim ? – Animals Home

Swimming comes naturally to horses. But they are like humans, some like to swim and others don’t. Not wanting to swim originates in fear and can be overcome with proper training and patience. Swimming is an excellent way to rehabilitate horses with leg injuries

Do Horses Like To Swim In Water?

The majority of horses enjoy the water and will naturally swim when they move out of their depth. But some may initially be wary of the water and so they will need time to build up their confidence

How long do you Swim a Horse?

Are horses afraid of water? Horses have a limited field of depth perception, which means wading into water is basically like walking into the complete unknown. And that’s pretty scary! Some horses may have had a bad experience with water in the past and therefore associate it with something negative. They simply dislike the feeling of being wet.

How Do Horses Swim?

As long as a horse keeps a forward momentum while submerged in water, their body will stay afloat. As horses are unable to breathe underwater, they naturally keep their heads above the surface. Keeping their mouth and nose above the water, therefore enabling them to breathe. The most effective way for a horse to swim is a paddle-like action.

Due to natural water resistance, this form of exercise is physically demanding on a horse and is therefore likely to increase heart rate and cause heavy breathing. When a horse is swimming it is essential to allow it to do what feels natural in the water and avoid hindering any movements.

Can You Ride A Horse When It Is Swimming?

You can absolutely ride a horse while it swims and it’s exciting to feel its power propelling through the water. However, it is vitally important that you do not hinder your horse’s movement. While horses can naturally swim, it’s not necessarily the most natural action for them. Therefore, be mindful not to obstruct them. It is also important to keep a loose rein, to avoid blocking the horses’ natural head movement in the water. You should also remove the saddle before swimming, to allow the horse to move with restriction.

How Far Can Horses Swim? 

It is more challenging for horses to swim than run on land, as they spend more energy on the former. For context, the energy a horse would expend running several miles could be spent swimming for just 10 minutes.

This is given the considerable energy needed for the horse to keep thrusting forward and suspending itself at the water surface. You can expect your horse to get exhausted quicker by swimming than running as water poses more resistance to easy movement, even worse when the horse is swimming against the current.

The distance you intend your horse to swim should be broken into sets. Each set could span 5-8 minutes, with breaks of about 4 minutes between these sets.

How Deep Can Horses Swim?

To avoid drowning or other related incidences, it is not advisable to get your horse swimming in pools or water bodies deeper than 15 feet.

Can Horses Swim in the Ocean?

With the height specification we have advocated, it wouldn’t be best to get your horse to swim in the ocean alone. But this doesn’t mean if it is dangerous if the conditions in the ocean are befitting.

Aside from the ocean depth, is there an inclination? It would help if you also were mindful of the conditions of the ocean floor.

Precisely, how hard and even is it? The harder and coarser the floor is, the more the potential hurt your horse could feel when swimming.

The current in the ocean at the time should be considered. How powerful is it? And what direction would your horse swim relative to the current?

Granted horses’ inability to hold their breath as they swim, you shouldn’t get them swimming in areas where the wave is powerful enough to cover their head.

Can Horses Turn When Swimming?

Not all horses excel at turning when submerged. This is considering how difficult it would be for the horse to move their hands laterally when in water.

However, it becomes easier for your horse to turn if it can find balance on a solid bottom. Once it touches this platform, it can pivot.

Can Horses Be Taught to Swim?

Not all horses are exquisite swimmers from the word go. Yes, your horse can be slowly introduced to swimming, learning the techniques, and loving the exercise.

As typical of all learning processes, this education should be graduated and procedural. You would only drown your horse if you throw it into deep waters and expect to make it through by swimming.

In line with this philosophy of little beginnings, introduce your horse to smaller water bodies. This can be a small swimming pool or even a smaller pond. We would recommend that your horse shouldn’t enter waters deeper than 2 feet at the beginning.

Over time, it would be getting into deeper waters as it becomes comfortable and acquainted with the swimming techniques. In this first swimming experience, make sure you are not sitting on your horse’s back, riding it.

You want this experience to be as minimally discomfiting as possible. Also, as we have said, keep the obstructions in the water minimal too.

Keep the swimming area free of trees, pilings, branches, or boulders. Also, reduce the entanglements. This means less of the impeding breast collars, girths, and saddles.

You can start the swimming with very brief rounds and back on land. Keep this closer to shore. Lungeing exercises can help the horse better acclimatize to the deepening water.

Start with areas where the water is not deeper than the horse’s ankles. As it gets more comfortable, move it deeper where the water is as deep as its knees. Following this, you can move it to where the water swallows its full body.

Watch keenly if your horse is getting more relaxed with water or how its nervousness is increasing (or reducing) as it spend longer times in the water and at greater depths.

Your horse would kick to maintain forward propulsion through the water. So you should be at the front of the horse to avoid getting badly kicked.

Why is Swimming Good for Horses?

There is a lot your horse can gain from swimming. There are therapeutic gains, cutting from rehabilitative to recreational.

Swimming is one of the best low-impact therapies recommended for horses to improve their health as far as enhancing their performances in athletics. In such aqua therapy, the horse is less exposed to injuries.

Swimming – as is characteristic of water exercises – improves the horse’s muscle mass, enhancing the joints. What’s more, swimming also lengthens the horse’s endurance span, resulting in improved balance and strength for the horse.

This explains why horses that are avid swimmers boast higher stamina and flexibility. This category of horses also has impressive strides.

Being that the horse is pushing against the water resistance, it gets more resilient, the muscles get bulked, and the lung capacity also improved.

Swimming is also an effective form of recovery for horses with tendon damage. The rehabilitative effect of swimming comes in here as the horse can work the muscle without putting significant stress on it (even straining it further).

How Long Does It Take for a Horse to Drown?

There is no definitive time for horses to drown. This is because of the varying circumstances like the water condition, horse stamina and health, and other exertions (like rider’s weight).

The more stressed a horse is, the faster it would drown. Another contributor to how fast your horse drowns is the length of time its head is submerged underwater.

Prolonged submersion (of the head) would get water penetrating your horse’s ears. Unlike the human ear, the horse’s ears don’t drain efficiently. An unhealthy buildup of water in the horse’s ears would hurt the horse’s equilibrium, even coming with an increased risk of infections.

Other than affecting balance, such infiltration would amplify your horse’s nervousness, driving it into panic mode. The accompanying loss of composure could facilitate the drowning.

Once you notice your horse getting less energetic (or less animated) in water and also when you see its level of agitation is increasing, lead it back to the shallower sections of the water body. This way, it can quickly have a platform to rest on and regain balance.

Can Baby Horses Swim?

All horses are born with some natural swimming instinct along with the favorable presence of bigger lungs even though the likability varies from horse to horse as like human. Baby horses need training to get accustomed to swimming and it’s better to start with a swimming pool and not directly to the sea.

Can All Horses Swim?

The majority of the horses can swim with some handholding with proper training but the liking and interest again vary from horse to horse. Proper interest and safety measures in horses swimming can turn out to be a good exercise for overall performance and health.

Can Horses Be Taught to Swim?

In general, horses are born with natural instinct of swimming, though it is not advisable to allow your horse in water deeper than 12 to 15 feet even though they are accustomed to swimming and also not deeper than 2 feet at the beginning of the training in the Swimming pool.

Do Horses Float?

Horses float pretty well in the water due to the presence of their huge lungs which acts as a buoyancy factor, keeping their head well above the water as they can not breathe underwater and have the risk of ear infection. Horses put their whole stamina to trot through the water while swimming.

Conclusion: We tried to cover all the aspects and facts related to the swimming of horses, horses can be trained to be good swimmers and it has substantial health benefits but while training and swimming with your horses you have to take precautions and consider the health conditions of your horses as well.