winter conditioning

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From: Sheelagh Martin 
Email: smewordp@idirect.com

I've been enjoying this site for a few months - lots of interesting discussions.  Here's a question for all you folks who live in the frozen north and work five days a week - how do you get your horses fit for the spring?  I have a 7 year old paint ( half thoroughbred) 16 hh, who has done some eventing but not much of anything in the past 8 months due to financial constraints and me spraining my ankle quite badly in September.  I would like to do some competitive trail riding this year but have recently gone from working 2 days a week (lots of time to ride in daylight!) to 5 days a week which means if the weather is lousy on Sundays and Mondays, Teddy and I are S.O.L.   Even if the weather is good those 2 days, it's obviously not possible to get a horse fit in just 2 consecutive days a week.  I probably won't  be back to 2 days until mid March.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks.