Re: Re: Conditioning Tips

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

> Susan,
>
> Are you talking about building bone, tendon., ligament or muscles. Muscle
are
> porbably the next easiest thing (maybe even easier) after the
cardovascular. How
> many 60 meter cirlcles would you have to do to get 3 years of  20 to 30
miles a
> week on the trial. A 60 meter circle is a bit less than 1/8 of a mile, so
we'll

Why do guys always get so hung up on size?  I can go downstairs, put in a
video and get a helluva cardio workout never moving from the basement.
Doing serpentines, half passes and shoulder-in across an arena, I can put
plenty of stress on tendon, ligament and build quite a bit of muscle.  Give
me 50 yards of hard ground, and I can stimulate plenty of bone remodeling,
it doesn't take, nor is bone remodeling increased by, 20-30 miles of riding.
Can I get a horse into cardiovascular shape to win a 100 mile ride, nope,
never said I could.  But cardiovascular conditioning from pasture pony to
dead fit takes a lot less than 2 or 3 years as you suggest.  The rule of
thumb for racehorses is 6 months to be fit for racing, and under a year for
full dead-fit conditioning, with warehouses full of data to support it.
It's the other tissues that take long, slow, steady, consistent work, and
that is very feasible in an arena.  Thoroughbreds on the track don't break
down due to lack of cardiovascular conditioning, it's the dense tissue that
almost always gives way.  And most endurance horses that fall by the way
side don't fail due to lack of cardiovascular conditioning, it's the dense
tissues that fail there, too.

> difference 200  laps.  Ingnoring the fact that the joints on the horse are
not
> designed to go in circles,

I'm not sure they're designed to crawl over rock outcroppings or through
deep sand for 50 or 100 miles, either, but we ask them to do it anyway.  And
there's a big difference between a balanced circle and flailing around in
something that approximates a round shape.


 if anyone wants to trot at a resonable speed for 200
> laps of a arenna week after week, more power to them. Then I agree it is
fine
> conditioning for trotting 200 laps around a 60 meter circle.  Of course
they
> (horse and rider) might die of boredom before then.

If all a rider can think of to do in an arena is trot 60 m circles for hour
after hour, then they should probably stay at home, anyway, lest they be
confused by all those nasty letters and cones and things.  Guess I was just
lucky to have worked with a world-class trainer---both I and my horses saw
it all as games, and pretty lively and challenging ones at that.  And he
came out of it fit enough to scamper through a straight-up-straight-down LD
immediately afterwards and through a damn tough 50 two weeks after that.
Was he ready to win, nope.  Did he finish it easily with good recoveries,
yup.

Susan G