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My older horse on flat to slight uphills, will
canter at 12mph with a 105 heartrate for miles versus a trot at the same
speed pushing his hr to 130-150. I have to drop this horse to a 7-8 mph
trot to keep his hr below 120.
He is a natural cantering machine...we've cantered
about 20 miles of an easy 50 and do a fair amount of training at that
gait. When I've allowed him to do an extended trot for longer distances
(like at a ride) or attempted to force him into doing them for longer
distances in an effort to increase his trot speed (during training), I
discovered that he would get muscle soreness (or perhaps the equiv of a tight
hamstring) in his hind quarters. When I alternated trotting and cantering
(as Angie describes in her email), it worked much better for this
horse.
Remember, when it comes to heartrates, absolute numbers
are fairly meaningless - only relative numbers count. For horses bred
for the track (like mine), his max hr is up in the 215-220 range, while other
horses may never be able to break 200, and that's ok...that's their max and it
doesn't seem to correlate with better or worse physical ability or
stamina. What is crucial in my use of an hrm is the recovery times - if I
do a trot or canter up a very steep hill and hit hr-max, once we get to the top
and stop, does he recover to under 110 within 90 seconds? That's a
broadly accepted bar.
If I put him into an extended exercise period
right below his anaerobic zone (on this horse, about 160), again, how long to
recover? This is how I tell where he is in his conditioning cycle - the
recovery numbers keep improving until a plateau is reached. After a
while (a couple years) I discovered I could tell without the hrm where he
was heartrate-wise. However, coming in to a vet check, they are
invaluable.
Mike
I'm hoping this gets lots of replies, because, according
to my heart rate monitor, I would definitely disagree with this, especially
when doing long distance riding. But, since it's a new toy for me, I'm
counting on those of you who are the experts to challenge this one.
I've been assuming the extended trot is the way to go and that the canter is
what tires out your horse. With three of my guys I get numbers in the
130's in the canter and the low 100's during the extended trot. At
least that's what the heart monitor has been telling
me.
cya,
Howard (has no idea how you measure energy expended on a
horse; are they counting sweat droplets?)
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