I guess it was about 3 or 4 years ago when I first heard of a track system for horses, or a paddock paradise as some may call it. I thought it was an interesting concept, but didn’t really look much into it as I didn’t have horses at home at the time and had never really had experience with anything other than traditional turnout. Fast forward through 2023 where my 2 horses had promptly trashed both “rotating” pastures we had built. I mean literally, they destroyed them. Despite my rotating, despite fertilizing, despite reseeding, they were trashed to the point that most of what still grew was weeds. Early 2024, I had nothing but mud on at least half of both turnouts. GROSS. No one likes mud. Especially the boot sucking KY clay kind. No thanks.

Something had to be done, there HAD to be a better way. As I thought about potential remedies, I remembered seeing the “track system” or “paddock paradise” so I started to research. Turns out, there is a LOT to creating a horse oasis track system, BUT, it can make land management a lot less of a struggle. Especially for those of us not able to afford plenty of acreage suitable for horses. We have a total of 6.5 acres here, however as it turns out, not a lot of it is suitable for horses. Toxic trees, sink holes, flooding when it rains hard among other things plague part of our land but we do have a nice area that’s just big enough to give them room to run. And really, that’s all they need. Freedom, friends, and food.

So, basically the idea of a track system is to mimic the way horses would live in the wild. Roaming/moving constantly, foraging, moving over different terrains and having forms of enrichment they wouldn’t get in a traditional type of turnout. As I do with basically everything I’m interested in, I went down a rabbit hole of research looking into this and as with most things horses, there are die hard crazies, half-assers, and people somewhere in the middle. It’s enough to make a person lose their mind, but I’ve been around the horse industry long enough. I know how to ignore the loonies that scream “ABUSE!” at everything from bits to shoes to stalls and pretty much everything people do with horses, so I have been able to dive into this track thing and find my middle ground. Side note, no matter what you do with horses there are always going to be people out there who will tell you you’re wrong, you should/shouldn’t do this or that, etc. Well look here Karen, you do you mkay? We’re all doing the best we can with what we have. Move along.

Once I decided I’d give it a go, off to tractor supply I went to get a bunch of those cheap step in posts and put up a temporary “inner” fence. Since I had plenty of electric rope and accessories leftover from our last turnout build, I was set there. My husband was absolutely convinced these horses would NOT respect these, since they are much shorter than their (5 ft) permanent pasture fencing. Low and behold, they DO in fact respect it and it WORKED. I have kept it up all summer and it’s worked really well! Even when I wasn’t able to work the boys consistently, they never really lost much of their fitness level because they kept busy walking and running around outside instead of standing in one spot gorging themselves on grass.

After having the temp inner fence up all spring and summer and seeing the benefits, we finally put in some permanent corner posts so the cheap step ins can just serve their “line post” purposes. Just to note, the temp posts aren’t without issue (they bend and then deform, badly, from the tension and sun and whatever) but they have served their purpose from early March to now (October). However, they worked really well to establish where I did want the more permanent fencing to be. Now that we have the permanent posts up, I was able to install electric gates to open/close as needed/wanted. Another added benefit to this is that I will be able to hang more hay bags from the new posts to encourage even more movement! I would love to add more features to the track, but for right now, we have what we have. With time and money, I’m sure more will come.

What are the benefits of a track system? Well, for starters:

• Increased movement leading to better fitness even without work
• Restricted grass intake (great for horses with cushings, history of laminitis, and other similar diseases)
• More like the “natural” environment horses bodies were built for (more varied food sources, more long stem dry forage, less lush pasture)
• Encourages natural behaviour (constant movement, foraging, herd environment)
• Discourages vices (cribbing, weaving, etc)
• Creates a stimulating, more interesting environment for the horses
• Has many health benefits

While there are people who keep their horses out on their tracks 24/7 and swear their horses hate stalls and people who stall their horses are the devil, that’s great, I just don’t have the right land setup and facilities at this time to be able to do that. Would I like to one day? Maybe, but now isn’t that time. The boys are on track from sun up to sun down on all possible days, meaning it isn’t raining, isn’t icy or super slick, isn’t actively snowing, or otherwise garbage weather. There is no shelter in the fields/on the track and there is no good place they like to rest, so for us currently, bringing them in to their stalls at night is best. Unless someone out there stating I abuse my horses for “locking them up” wants to sponsor them a nice cushy shelter for their track so they have something, anything to block the sun/rain/wind, etc so I’d feel OK leaving them out. Until then, they will be in the barn in the shade under their fans during the hottest parts of the day, in their insulated stalls on the coldest nights, and out of the muck on the muddiest days. The rest of the time, they’ll be enjoying “track” life!

An overview map of the layout

Here is a video and some photos of the boys enjoying their track. A few shots of them grazing the “middle” selectively where we have been able to grow much nicer grass than with them on it all the time! As you can see, the track portion has become pretty bare in a lot of spots, which is great since restricting the amount of access they have to lush grass is kind of the idea here.

Here are a few photos since putting in the permanent posts this week!

Here are some improvements including surfacing on the “front side” and a sand pit at the end of the hardatanding “square” plus some logs for them to navigate.  Next up is a scratch post going in very soon!