Questions on Rest/Training

Email exchange between me and Debbie this morning. Thought it might be good for those curious, enquiring minds out there. Enjoy!
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Hey, if you don't mind answering a couple of endurance questions, I'll ask them.

Thinking back to Sand Hills.........that was our first 50 for the season after a rough winter with little riding. Oreo did fine and returned home w/o issue and we rode this past weekend so I guess he is in good shape after all. On the first lap at Sand Hills, I held him back. He wanted to go faster in the beginning and I pulled him back from the first group. I wanted to make sure he made it to the end. Now that I know he is in shape, what are your thoughts about letting him go faster in the beginning?

After the Saturday 50 at Sand Hills, the first week back home, how much time do you give Legs before riding again? What's the routine when you do start riding again after a competition? And in general, what is your workout schedule?

That's it....thanks again for your help at Sand Hills............I owe my 9th place finish to you

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Hey Debbie,

No problem at all! I love answering this stuff. I probably will even end up posting your questions and answers on my blog for fun.

You planned it exactly right with holding him back the first loop. A great way to run these races, especially if you're unsure of your horse's fitness, is to go conservative in the beginning and get faster as the day goes on. Once your horse is fit, you can let them go a bit but it's always good to still build up if you can and "negative split" (go faster on the last loop). That way, if you have to push at the end you've got plenty of horse left.

There are a couple of examples of when it's good to go faster at first, though. If it is going to be a really hot day, it's good to go fast at first while the day is cooler (this might be especially good for Oreo if he tends to get hot). Another reason would be if you had a young horse (like Legs) who was expending more energy fighting you than is worth it; you can let them go until they get the speed out of their system and then settle them down later once they are a little more tired/relaxed. I do this with Legs a lot; one of these days I'm going to see how hard and long I can run him before he's exhausted! :-p

Rest and training are really different for every horse. The general rest rule is 1 day for every 10 miles raced, with a very light stretch-out ride (2-3 miles) around day 3 or 4. For Legs, I actually let him rest a week before I went up and rode him again. I did that for a couple reasons; one is that I board him 45 minutes away so it's not the easiest thing to get up there. The second is because I know he loves to run and play in the pasture with his buddies, so he spends plenty of time keeping loose (it also makes it hard to keep weight on his skinny butt), so I knew he wouldn't need it. I train 2-3 times a week, with only one of those rides being a real workout/conditioning ride. Again, a lot of that is due to my work schedule but also because Legs holds his fitness so well. Our other two rides are usually in the morning, and are either a light ride on trail (no more than 5 miles, mostly trot), or messing around in the arena/round pen or practicing with the trailer. Legs has a terrible loading problem, so that is our focus at the moment.

After their rest period and when you start riding them again, it generally depends on the horse and what your ride schedule is going to be. I have a heavy ride schedule for this first part of the spring/summer, so well be going very light as far as conditioning because he just won't need it. In a way, the races are his conditioning, so most of his downtime will be spent resting up for the next one. To keep conditioning heavily with that many rides is inviting a few problems you can get from over-conditioning, like injuries and not to mention exhausting the horse. If I were doing rides months apart, I would keep a very similar schedule riding him 2-3 times a week, with one of those rides being a serious conditioning ride (10-20 miles).

When I'm getting a horse fit from scratch, I generally keep the same kind of schedule but start very slow and base it more around time in the saddle rather than distance. For example, I took my friend Kelly out this weekend with her horse, Jazz, and we did a 10 mile ride of mostly walk and trot. It took us about 2 hours, and we worked up very little sweat. This is called Long Slow Distance riding (LSD) and I really haven't found any better way to start conditioning an endurance horse. When I first started Legs, I was forced into it because he was so spooky. But because it was lower stress/low impact, it really got him in awesome shape.

Does that help answer your questions? Sorry it's kind of vague. As with most things horse-related, a lot depends on the situation and the horse.

~Sarah

I also forgot to mention, if you have access to the equipment there are a couple of other conditioning things you can do as your "light" workout once a week (Heather and Jeremy love this stuff):

Swimming: just like for people, this is great low-impact and strengthens up ligaments and works muscles that wouldn't otherwise get worked.

Treadmill: No hills, no problem! Stick your horse on an uphill treadmill for 30 minutes at a fast walk. It's low-impact, and really helps develop those hill-climbing endurance skills.

Hot Walker: Just having your horse walk on a hot walker for an hour (30 minutes in each direction) is an amazing way to get them some slow, low-impact work.

Hope that helps too!