Endurance Riders

[ruth83]

Please would some of you share your fitness and training programs with me?

I would be particulalry interested to find out what length of rides you compete in and how long it takes you to get your horse fit for such an event.
What sort of work do you do within the program?
Does anyone do interval training (or anything similar)?
Do endurance horses usually have holidays out of season (like eventers through the winter or hunters through the summer?)

Any information would be greatly recieved. PM if prefered

 

[hussar]

I've been doing endurance for 13 years. My now retired horse took me to Gold series which is rides of 50miles (80kms) and upwards. My current horse is more injury-prone and we're a bit stuck at the 80k mark but hoping to progress.

I personally don't do interval training, preferring to rely on hill work for muscle-building and have access to disused railway lines for speed work. I don't intentionally give my horse a holiday over the winter but the weather usually dictates a break of at least 1 month! I try to bring him back into work in Jan/Feb, starting with a couple of weeks of walk and then building up. We'd aim to do a few training rides in late Feb/March, and then start competitive rides late March onwards, weather depending. The fitter he is at the end of a season, the less time it takes to get going at the beginning.

That's a very brief outline, but pm me if you'd like more detail.

 

[Faro]

Hussar's second paragraph is spot on for how I work too (except I don't have anywhere to do the speed work). I'm in the Chilterns, so am fortunate I can do lots of hill work. Hill work is much harder for the horse compared to work on the flat, so in theory you shouldn't need to put in as many hours of hill work as you would if you were doing exactly the same training plan on the flat. Hillwork is a mixture of walking, trotting and/or cantering up hills - depending of course on the terrain. You know you've got a pretty fit horse when you can canter up a long, reasonably steep hill and the horse can carrying on cantering when the hill flattens out at the top, without puffing or slowing down!

Believe it or not, it is not necessary to ride an endurance horse every single day. Quality, not quantity, of training is they key. And you want to avoid the constant wear and tear on the joints. Mine only get ridden 3 - 4 times a week (plus of course the occasional competitive ride). One of mine will be competing at 80km this summer, the second will be doing his first novice season at 30/40km. Mine do, however, live out 24/7 which really does help them retain a base level of fitness to work upon.

Oh and my horses workload dramatically decreases in the winter too - but again it's mainly due to having a full time job, so no daylight at all during the week - and not enough daylight at the weekends. So during December/January, I will just keep them ticking over with a short leisurely hack once or at most twice a week.

Hope that helps.

 

[LauraWheeler]

I did endurance on Lucy before she fell ill. We did rides of up to and inclu 80km. We used to trot everywhere. Lots of hill work. I also used to lunge her quite a bit. She did 5mins trot on each rein, then 3mins canter 1min trot 2mins canter 1 min trot on each rein so sort of interval training on the lunge. We didn't realy have a fitness program.
Lucy didn't realy have a holi she also did showing, jumping, dressage etc in the summer then she hunted at least once a week all winter. Bless her she earnt her keep.

 

[EstherYoung]

For the lower distance stuff it's just the same as getting your horse fit for general hacking - nothing specifically special or anything, and generally if they're fit enough to do a couple of hours' hacking from home, I'd be quite happy taking them to a 30km ride.

When I had H doing 80kms, we'd aim for a couple of longer slower rides a week and a couple of shorter faster rides. We'd never really ride out for longer than 30-40km at home, and I'd use the rides themselves to add to fitness. I do tend to use interval training at home for the fast work because we don't have any serious hills round here.

Plans are baaaaad, but generally with endurance horses you're looking at fitness over the years rather than a few weeks. Each year they come back fitter and stronger (in theory), and then you build them up further over that year by picking your competitions cleverly. Ours tend to get natural downtime over the winter when the weather turns manky and there are no rides.

H is 24 now, and not competing any more, so our fitness program (such that it is) is centred around keeping him sound and supple and able to go out to the odd pleasure ride as he still enjoys going to parties.