300 Rides with the Equisense

It feels like I've ridden with it for a lot more than that in the last year and a half that I've had it, but I just hit 300 rides with my equisense!

The equisense provides some averages for all of their measures and I figured I'd share them in this post. This is from the last year and a half (bought it in December 2016).

Average Ride Time: 47:25

Average Halt Time: 4:07
Average Walk Time: 28:21
Average Trot Time: 8:58
Average Canter Time: 5:56

I think these are a bit odd because I've used the equisense on walking trail rides or on days where I think we're going to work but we end up just standing around and talking to people and wandering around the ranch. I also tend to turn it off after I'm done working, but still walk out for 10 minutes or so afterward, so the walk times are all kinds of messed up.

Over the last year and a half, TC has been in and out of full work. When I first got the equisense, we were lucky to get any work done at all because we were building up his weak stifle (growing pains), then last year he was great, but then last winter we took it way easy. So currently he's doing more like 12-15 minutes of trot and 8-10 minutes of canter, but the average times very much don't reflect that. Which is fine because that's not what averages do.

Last year when TC was kinda bad lol

Average Symmetry: 7.3

Symmetry is tough because TC's will drop when we do harder work, like half steps. He also had kind of a crap symmetry score when his stifle was not great. I'd love to get his symmetry much higher of course, but there's a balance there. If I let him go kinda on the forehand and kinda over the ground too much, his symmetry score leaps up to the 8-8.5 range. Soooo yeah.


Average Walk Stride Frequency: 46.9 s/min
Average Trot Stride Frequency: 75.5 s/min
Average Canter Stride Frequency: 94.6 s/min

TC's canter tempo is definitely a bit on the slow side while I think his trot could slow down a bit more. TC is also a card carrying member of the Slow Walk Club, so that's quite slow as well.

A good symmetry day

 Average Walk Stride Regularity: 3/10
Average Trot Stride Regularity: 7.4/10
Average Canter Stride Regularity: 5.5/10

Regularity is another one that can be deceptive. I can get a real nice regularity score if we don't do any lengthenings or shortenings. The only one that is a bit annoying is the walk, but again he walks so so so slow out on the track, which is fine, and then marches in the arena. So of course the regularity is questionable.


Average Walk Elevation: 2.3cm
Average Trot Elevation: 12.3cm
Average Canter Elevation: 22.6cm

Elevation is pretty cool. TC's elevation has definitely gone up since I've started riding with Tanya. The canter especially was hovering around a 20 for a while and now we're getting a lot of 23s.

Damn look at that elevation

So here's to another 300 rides with this thing! In honor of my 300th ride yesterday, I totally forgot to turn it on today. Yeah... maybe tomorrow!

Reviewing the Data

I always like using my equisense in lessons because it tells me how much work I need to be doing on my own for lessons to not be exhausting for TC.

Lots of trotting and a bit of canter too

One of the things I adopted when bringing Rico back from his injuries was the desire for him to be very fit. Tendons and ligaments are most at risk when the muscles are tired. They can give out and then it's just delicate structures holding the horse together. I've felt it in myself for sure while weightlifting. The fitter Rico was, the less likely it was that in any given ride, we'd get to that point where his muscles would give out. 

And especially in lessons and shows. As we all are, I am an advocate for my horse in lessons- if I think something isn't right or something is too much, I'll speak up. But it sucks to be paying money for a lesson and say "hey my horse isn't fit enough for this much work" and have to stop. 

I have been working to apply the same things to TC and have been keeping track of it via the equisense. Now, the equisense doesn't tell me everything. It aggregates the data so I see totals vs how many sets/etc. And there is a difference between ten one minute canter sets with long breaks in between and one ten minute continuous canter set. But it's a really good reference for me. 

Red = trotting, pink = cantering, lots
of long trot sets this ride, good!

So far in our rides, TC is working 20 minutes in trot and 10 minutes in canter. After the lesson with Jeremy, I checked the equisense and we had trotted for 28 minutes and cantered for 8. I was glad that the canter work wasn't too much for him, but we did go quite a bit over his trot threshold. I never felt like he was fading, though he was running quite a bit on adrenaline that day so I really shouldn't trust him. 

Other data from this weekend reveals that we're hanging tight at the upper 7s for symmetry, which measures how even your horse is. For a while we were getting up to 8, but this score really can plummet when we're working on transitions or moving the trot up and back, which we've been doing a lot of. Instead I like looking at the little chart that tells me where the score was at any given moment. A lot of our moments are over 8 and I'm cool with that. 

7.7 is pretty normal for us

Here's it over time, early on he was
super super tense and those other dips
I think were before/after the canter

 And then there's the left vs right analysis. I was really disappointed to see my love of going right was reflected in this lesson. I love going right! I'm trying to force myself to ride more to the left though. Sometimes during a ride I'll check the equisense and see how much I've gone left vs right, then try to tack on more time to the left (more likely).

I do the same thing with transitions! I've been trying to hit seventy five to a hundred transitions per ride, and granted this ride was so much mostly because I was stopping and then walking a lot, but still, yay triple digit transitions.

At least trot and canter are more even

 Pages I don't pay attention to include the regularity. TC has always been around a 7-7.5 for his trot and canter. And the walk was a beautiful 2.5 because I both make him march and let him plod around sometimes. We get a lot of low walk regularity scores!

Overall the equisense revealed it was a good lesson! And I really need to start hitting the 25+ minute mark in trot more often. Plus, even though we typically do 10 minutes in canter and this lesson had only 8 minutes, I really need to push his canter work up too. We're peering over at those First 3 and Second 1 tests, and before I get too excited about how TC is now pretty much schooling all of the movements in each, I need to settle down and just plain canter the horse for longer so he can do the movements all strung together!