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[RC] Training/conditioning a 5 y.o. - k s swigartKathy R. said: I was wondering if anyone who has gone through this could give me their opinion on whether this is too aggressive a training schedule or not. If you ask me, your conditioning schedule is in many ways not agressive enough and in some ways it is too agressive. The assumptions I am taking (because I think they are what you have stated) is that a) the horse IS already broke to ride so you aren't asking about if this is a good way to saddle break a horse. b) you want an opinion about the conditioning aspects of this program, not the schooling aspects of it. c) the horse has enough room to get about, frolick and play, etc. all day every day and has a playmate to do it with. That being the case you get virtually no conditioning benefit from any of this: Starting at 2 miles walk/trot 3-4 days per week with a 10 mile walk only ride on Sat or Sun. The horse is getting more conditioning playing at liberty all day every day than she is getting from this. Depending upon how long the lesson is (1 hr???) and if the instructor is putting you and the horse through its paces (walk, trot, canter, turn, stop). You will get more conditioning benefit from this: Dressage lesson 1 per week in addition. If you are planning to start your walk/trot at this pace: Increase 1 mile per week walk/trot not increasing speed, pretty much just keep going until we are doing 10 miles in over an hour and a half That would be a pace of 10 miles in 90 minutes, i.e. a 9 minute mile. So your first 2 mile conditioning session would last all of 18 minutes. If you ask me, starting an endurance horse conditioning program by riding it for 18 minutes. And the only conditioning that you will get out of going for a 10 mile walk (no cardiovascular conditioning and no musculoskeletal loading to speak of) will be teaching the horse to be out for a long time. So, unless I wanted the schooling benefit of it, I would skip the walk/trot for 2 miles part of the program. And unless I wanted to just teach my horse that we go out and spend hours on the trail together and just enjoy each other's company, I would skip the 10 mile walk only part of the program. So while there are some schooling benefits, the conditioning benefits are virtually nil. Assuming fairly level terrain (not totally level, but not up and down steep hills either). If you want to get any conditioning benefit, I would a) decrease the number of conditioning days from 4/5 (3-4 days of walk trot and one day of long walk) to just 3 days of conditioning, and I would start out trotting 2-4 miles on 2 days a week and then go for a 10 mile trot/walk (notice I don't say walk/trot, since it is trotting with some walk breaks, not the other way around) and work your way up IN DISTANCE, not speed, from there. Additionally, and this will put me in the minority, _I_ would also include some cantering in the work, but if you are doing canter work in your dressage lessons and you don't feel comfortable cantering on the trail...or you want to be conservative, you don't absolutely HAVE to do this (unless you intend to canter at the LD ride, in which case you had better be conditioning for it in advance). So, now you know where I think your conditioning schedule isn't agressive enough. Here is where I consider it to be too agressive. Then stay at the 10 mile mark but start decreasing how long it takes get down to 10 miles in 1 hour over a couple weeks ride 10 mph for an hour 3 days a week for 2 more weeks There are plenty of experienced endurance riders who regularly condition at 10mph (myself included); however, I wouldn't recommend it to somebody who is sufficiently inexperienced to be asking the level of questions you are asking and it is possible to condition an endurance horse for a long and successful career without ever doing so. If I were you, I would start increasing my distance to 15, 20, 25 miles before I started increasing my speed to 10 mph. Yes, this does mean that you will have to spend more and more time in the saddle instead of less and less....but that will give you the opportunity to get that bonding benefit of spending lots of hours on the trail with your horse, and it will give your horse the opportunity learn that endurance is about being out on the trail for a long time :). Oh yeah, and if I were you, I would practice what you are learning in your dressage lessons out on the trail. Going out and doing distance on the trail isn't just about conditioning. kat Orange County, Calif. Do a 25 mile endurance ride. Just be sure that you don't do the 25 mile endurance ride at a speed higher than you have been conditioning at. So if you plan to do a 25 mile ride at 10 mph, then you had better be conditioning at that speed at home....and you need to have been conditioning at that speed for longer than a few weeks. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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