Ramping Up

So since the end of our show season, TC has been in what I consider light to moderate work. For most of winter, he trotted about 10 minutes per ride and cantered about 5. Now that I've decided that our last storm this weekend is actually our last, it's time to get a bit more fit.

Rico was incredibly fit and because of that, I was less worried about his soundness. When the horse is fit, they're less likely to get their muscles so fatigued that the muscle gives out and only the tendon remains to hold it together. My biggest fear of this happening was when I couldn't control the work, such as at a lesson or at a show. I wanted lessons and shows to be lighter work than his normal workout. Never did I want to leave a show or a lesson thinking "that was a hard workout for him!" and I never really did. I used to think that Rico probably would prefer to do more shows, since he got the day off before and after the show, and the show itself wasn't very much work.

We'll keep this pony thinking that shows are SUPER FUN and
not at all tiring

TC has been on and off fit while I've owned him. Obviously he was young when I got him, so he was in a good amount of work for his age. Then he got hurt, and when he came back, I got him pretty fit before he then was replaced with the evil TC over the winter and had it off. Last summer he was quite fit and then again I let him down for this winter.

We're now starting to get more serious about his fitness now that spring has sprung.

With Rico, I used work sets to keep him fit. Essentially we'd have five or six eight-minute long sets that were spaced out by 2 minutes. So yes, the math is correct, Rico was ridden for about an hour and a half every day (including fifteen minutes of walking before and after). I varied the trot and canter work, but we had at least 15 minutes of canter and 25 minutes of trot each day. This seems like a lot, I know, and it was. Rico was a very quiet horse and was competing at the FEI levels, so I wanted him to be so fit that he was downright bouncing off the walls after a day off. It worked, clearly.

Fit horse and fit rider... not so much anymore but we both are
enjoying it at least

TC doesn't need to be as fit as an FEI horse, but I still like him to be quite fit. Because I have the equisense, I don't really use intervals anymore as much as I just check on it periodically. In light work, TC hits 10 minutes of trot and 5 minutes of canter as much as possible. Sometimes it shifts around a bit, but I do a decent job with hitting those numbers. In full work, TC gets to 20 minutes of trot and 10 minutes of canter. I find that this is sufficient to get all the stuff done that I need to get done in a day- a good quality warm up at all three gaits, then whatever work we're working on.

I know a lot of people fully believe that if you go out and ask for everything and the horse gives it to you, you should put them away, but honestly I've never really wanted to put fitness that far down. At least where TC lives, he really doesn't have any opportunity to self exercise. He lives in a large paddock that he can trot in, sure, but he doesn't. And he does get eurocized now 4 days a week for about 40 minutes, but that's all in walk, which is great for him and his fitness and I love that my barn does this, but isn't the same as working in collection.

We'll get back to this level of fitness soon, even more than this!

So there's a balance with the fitness and the training. I definitely switch gears immediately if he does everything I ask for. If I ask for a leg yield and he gives it to me, we aren't going to school the hell out of it, but we will continue riding.

I've never had him get sour or pissy about it, we do a lot of cross training out in the cross country field and we ride in the open every day. Plus, the horse loves to work.

Over the next month, we'll be increasing his work back to full work. This means more riding time for me and more training for him, which is excellent news! Now just to figure out how to grab a lesson at some point and then we're really set.