Well folks, the results are in – the results of the study here in Australia where GPS units were used to track horse movement. Hampson and his colleagues tracked horse movement in the wild and also domestic horses under all kinds of circumstances, including our famous “paddock paradise” and all the other creative ways that we have come up with of fostering horse movement for horse health.
And I am afraid that, after all that work (darn it!), the most movement travelled by domestic horses was done in a basic big paddock of four fenced-off sides.
I guess there is no substitute for playful companions that promote a good gallop around, enough room to do that romping in and plenty of happy work and play with their humans to get miles under their feet.
Here’s a photo of me getting creative about getting some miles under the feet of my miniatures - keeping them healthy during the spring growth. Please note, this is only possible because the ponies are completely unafraid and very co-operative!

The researchers of the horse movement study, Hampson and his colleagues, ”tested five pasture structures to see if they tended to encourage more movement in horses – a thought that has been gaining popularity among some horse owners. The “racetrack” style fencing system, which blocks off the center area of the pasture, made no major difference in movement and actually seemed to make the horses move less, Hampson said. A maze pattern also slightly reduced average movement, and a spiral fence pattern lowered the average even more. Fencing off a tree to keep horses from stagnating in the shade seemed to cause little changes in their movement habits.
In fact, the pasture structure which yielded the greatest daily travel distance was the basic open pasture system of four fenced-off sides, he said.”
This quote was from the Horseconscious newsletter, click here and scroll down about a third of the page to get the rest of their article for the horse movement study. Their article was in turn taken from thehorse.com, Christa Leste-Lasserre June 15 2010, Article 16515.
As I said “darn! All that work!”